North
West New York
Dairy, Livestock & Field Crops
Team
Dairy, Livestock & Field Crops
Team
By: James Kingston
In these tough economic times I often hear farmers, sales representatives, and other Extension personnel talk about getting back to basics and improving farm efficiencies. Whether it is fixing the curtain that is stuck half open to improve ventilation, taking soil samples to determine what is restricting yields, or improving drainage to increase yields and reduce headaches. With this past summer being one of the wettest and coldest on record proper drainage has never been more important.
We have all seen fields this year with areas of yellow corn that is only 3 feet tall that will produce poor yields, which in return is costly to the farmer. Installing drainage tile in these wet areas may seem like an expensive investment but if installed and maintained properly, tile can increase productivity for generations. The average cost of 4 inch drainage tile installed ranges from $1.00 to $1.25 a foot. Systems can range from a few lines scattered out across the field tying into low areas to intense systems with parallel lines anywhere from 20 to 100 feet apart. Parallel Systems can be quite costly, for example at 40 foot spacing it will cost over $1,000 an acre installed but many farms swear by these systems because they can get on the ground earlier in the spring, they are never working or harvesting the ground when it is too wet therefore leading to less compaction, and yields are improved. These intense systems can take many years to return your investment. That is why I would recommend to all farmers to try to improve smaller areas that are a constant nuisance because they can be very costly if not fixed.
For example, in this picture the dark streak inside the oval is a wet area that stretches across a field where every year crop production is lost. The blue line is a stream that is an adequate outlet for the tile. This stretch of ground is about 1,000 feet long and roughly 35 feet wide, approximately 35,000sq/ft (over 3/4 an acre). Each spring the farmer swamps through the area with every pass, applying fertilizers, planting seeds, investing time, and money. While in the fall low yields are harvested and it is often a headache to travel through that area. If you estimated that the farmer loses 80 bushel of corn a year in this area plus the investment to plant 3/4 of acre, that small stretch can easily be a $500 loss each year. For about a $1,000 the farmer can install tile through the center of this stretch and place a stand pipe at the upper end to catch surface water before it enters the field, greatly reducing crop failure. This investment will pay for itself in 2 years. If a farm has a few areas like this example, over a few years it can be quite a loss if not repaired. Many times farmers don’t think about how much ground is actually being lost with these small wet patches.
In the last five years I designed well over a million feet of tile in Orleans County. I can drive by those fields and see right where the tile was installed by the quality of the crops. Having proper slope and finding an adequate outlet for drainage tile are some of the toughest challenges to get tile to work correctly. Soil & Water Conservation Districts are great resources for farms to have custom tile systems designed and in a pinch don’t hesitate to give me a call for some assistance.
While harvesting crops this fall farmers may want to keep in the back of their minds those wet areas with poor yields that could be a quick fix and help the farm be more productive.
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