Follow-up monitoring of drained fields There is pretty high interest among farmers in seeing how the results turn out.”, Your email address will not be published. Note that using the smallest grout possible will increase installation time. There appeared to be a greater effect from tile depth than spacing on both DRP and TP losses. This is not meant to be exact and will vary depending on the design of the system. Additionally, for farmers, runoff literally ends up washing away their crop nutrients. So, Kime presented an offer to the whole group: if anyone wanted to run a close-spacing trial, Bluewater Pipe would donate the tile. stalled with a power auger to the depth of the drain. And, it all depends on how a person looks at it. Minimum cover greater than 2.5 ft. Tile SpacingHomeDrainage PlanningTile Spacing. If the distance to cover is 40 feet, spacing the tiles closer together at 20 feet allows the field to drain faster. “These are young, highly educated farmers who work really hard and are open to pushing to the limits,” Kime says. s = 0.1 inch assumption for water trapped due to surface roughness. #tile20 means #service20. Give some of these Canadian contractors a follow to see what’s up! https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/019-1187 #OntAg. I'm embarrassed to say that we took the easy way … “Farmers see it: the highest yield is within four to five feet of the tiles.”, “Farmers see it: the highest yield is within four to five feet of the tiles.”. “The closed-loop water recycling system can be used to sub-irrigate crops during drought-stress periods by using the field surface and sub-surface runoff water stored in reservoir.”. “Ultimately, these will be pretty sophisticated data sets that may take a bit to interpret. It’s also worth noting that shallow drain depth requires a closer drain spacing, which can increase drainage costs for farmers. There was floodin… Mark them when you can see them. Unable to attend #LICO20 this year? By the early 1970s, 3-rod spacings became common thanks to the advent of plastic corrugated drainage pipe and the development of the drainage plow. Pipe Drains. Margaret May, the regional program lead for southwestern Ontario with the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association (OSCIA), sees potential in the tightly-spaced tile concept. Typical drain depth range = 3 to 6 ft. This is a subject of drainage research. For instance, for a tile drain spacing of 40 m, reducing the drain depth from 1.5 to 0.9 m reduced NO 3 -N losses by 31% (but reduced crop yield by 60%), while for a tile drain depth of 1.5 m, increasing the tile drain spacing from 27 to 40 m reduced NO 3 -N losses by 50% (while reducing crop yield by 7%). “Over the last couple years, I have been watching these guys doing lots of development on practices above ground – strip tillage, pushing fertilizer applications to the limit, doing everything they can to see what yield impacts they can achieve – but in all these test plots, they were never reporting on what was below ground. Dec 15,2020 - The spacing of tile drains to relieve water logged land is inversely proportional to the:a)depth of drain below the ground surfaceb)depth of impervious strata from the drainc)Discharge per unit length in the draind)coefficient of permeability of the soil to be drainedCorrect answer is option 'C'. When conditions are right to fix, it may not be so easy to spot. There’s no one who goes to a soil crop meeting who isn’t already intensively draining, and who doesn’t understand that drainage is the best payback they can make on their land. In the 1990s, GPS and yield monitors allowed farmers to see yield improvements over the tiles, which began a push towards closer and closer spacing. Southern Ontario’s clay-based soils are some of Canada’s most productive – and expensive – farming acres. It takes more precision when making cuts, but would have saved us a big visual headache later in the process. Subsurface tile drains provide a direct flowpath for nitrate … Phosphorus removal technology: Thames River Phosphorus Reduction Collaborative’s water management and treatment plans, Ontario Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. Dietrich intends to install similar spaced tile into two additional fields this coming season. “Do I think everyone will go to 10-foot tile. “Good soil drainage is essential to the proper management of wet, fertile soil to be used for agricultural production. a) Exterior weeping tile or French drains manage water at ground level before it can get into your basement. You need to calculate the cost of putting in a main line and other costs, too. “It is related to the efficacy of a new technology: closed-loop controlled drainage with sub-irrigation that we developed in the past,” he explains. Tighter-spaced tiles can get excess water out more quickly during high-rainfall events, allowing plants to get growing again more quickly. Typical tile depths (W) for agricultural drainage are 3–4 feet. Today, it is common to install 15-foot spaced drainage in fields with heavy clay soil. Two other farm families also jumped on the opportunity in the fall of 2019. Pipes 1 and 9 (not shown in Fig. But, we’re dealing with farmers who believe in and are skilled at using data to manage their farms.”. In addition to a tile spacing and tile depth study, the team also set out to evaluate sub-irrigation and drip-irrigation. Big rain events in the summer often occur on the hottest and most, to a certain point, ideal growing days. “I’m excited to be participating in this project with young and entrepreneurial farmers who are wanting to push the limits on their production.”. The study took place over a four-year period and compared two different tile drain depths and spacings for regular free drainage (RFD) and controlled drainage/sub-irrigation (CDS) systems in a corn and soybean rotation. Forward thinking guys look very long-term. The conclusion was clear. Chin Tan, a water management research scientist with AAFC, and Tiequan Zhang, a soil fertility and water quality research scientist also with AAFC, designed and authored the study. We think the only way to remediate that is to split the tiles.”. #tile20. The study could have important implications for drainage contractors. In addition to yield return, Dietrich sees tight drainage offering less quantifiable benefit. In the RFD system, it was also evident that decreasing tile drain depth reduced dissolved reactive phosphorus (DRP) and total phosphorus (TP) losses. One year in, Dietrich is pleased with yield results from his field where tightly-spaced drainage was installed last spring. “Every one of these farmers believes in drainage already. “But if you had a highly productive farm where water was an issue, maybe you’d consider 10-foot tile on parts of it. Tight drainage tile doubles your cost but it’s a 20 plus year investment. They installed 25-foot spaced drainage into approximately 70 of those acres and 12.5-foot spaced drainage into the remaining 12 acres. In the 1990s, GPS and yield monitors allowed farmers to see yield improvements over the tiles, which began a push towards closer and closer spacing. Both scientists indicate tile drain depth and spacing could affect crop yields: Measured yields for shallow drains in the Ohio study were reduced by eight percent from 35 percent compared to the deeper drain depth. He cautions that the results available to date are based only on a single field in a single year. “I’m all about return on investment and sustainability going forward for the next generation. Typical spacing = 30 to 100 ft. Generally, most field crops are not injured if the water table is lowered to at least six inches below the ground surface in the first 24 hours after a rain. Later subsurface drains made of clay “tiles” and more recently plastic perforated corrugated pipe were integrated into the designs of many systems. Studies have found a direct correlation between decreased tile drainage volume and decreased tile depth in corn and soybeans. To Kime, however, the discussions seemed to miss an obvious opportunity. Let us know what you think. This was supported by field studies in both central Ohio and Nova Scotia, which indicated annual nitrate losses for shallow drain depth were reduced by 38 to 40 percent compared to losses for the deeper drain depth. We’ve had many conversations with farmers about why their tile spacing is not working at 30’ or 50’. “Good soil drainage is essential to the proper management of wet, fertile … And, he adds, any analysis of results needs to be done while keeping in mind that installation happened in wet, early spring, less than ideal conditions, and last year’s very late planting date in southwestern Ontario translated to poorer overall yield. Third-generation grain farmer, Eric Dietrich, was first to contact Kime and first to commit a field. By entirely solving drainage issues via the tight spacing, Dietrich expects to have a better starting place for on-farm research. For the CDS system, an increase in tile spacing from 4.2 to 7.5 meters increased the total combined surface and sub-surface drain water discharge by 20 percent but reduced total nitrate loss by 109 percent. When the tile drain depth was increased from 0.65 to 0.85 meters, the result was increasing total combined surface and sub-surface drain water discharges and nitrate loss by 58 and 39 percent, respectively. “What is too close? Pipe drains, also known as toe drains, are perforated pipes that collect water along the length of the wall and drain it to the outside. The next step is to look at how drainage density can impact nutrient losses, specifically nitrogen and phosphorus, from agricultural lands. In the spring of 2019, Kime and Dietrich installed tile drainage into an 82-acre, untiled field that Dietrich had recently purchased. There are two primary reasons for landowners to install drain tile, but both are done for increased value. @FarmPinegrove. These tiles are made of plastic which is great in areas where copious amounts of water will be present. “The design of the tile drainage is to remove excess surface water as quickly as possible when there is excess rainfall over and above the storage capacity of soils during early spring, late autumn and winter,” Tan says. Narrower spacing: How tight is too tight for tile drainage spacing? There are so many unknowns: obviously yield differences are big, but what about fertilizer efficiencies, soil temperatures – there are so many options going forward for research. What’s still not fully understood, however, is the economic return of close spacing. The rationale for tighter tile drainage is counter-intuitive at first glance: installing more tile can translate to more drought-resistant crops. Comments accepted until February 18. 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