By Brian Hefty

IRRIGATION

If you were at our July 25th Field Day on our farm, you may have attended the sub-irrigation sessions in the tiling area.  Many farmers are starting to set up systems on their farms to both tile AND irrigate through the same lines.  Here are some of the things this likely entails:

  • More tile per field – This means more investment, but if you can get both drainage AND irrigation from the same system, it’s obviously worth more, too.
  • A well.
  • Less water usage (likely 50% less) than a center-pivot system, plus it will get the corners of fields.
  • Drainage Water Management Systems – Shut-offs at the end of tile lines or at stages in your tile lines.
  • Perhaps a slightly different design – You will want tile lines to run a little flatter than normal – in other words, more on the contour than up and down your slopes.
  • A relatively flat field – This can be done with slopes, but it is a lot easier and less costly to do it in flatter land.

If you are interested in putting in a system to both drain AND irrigate your field, please get in touch with us.  We want to work with a few people in our region so we can learn from this and so we can host some field days at these sites to show other farmers.

SUPPLY

There should be no big supply issues this fall, but that doesn’t mean you should wait to order your tile.  Get it on the farm to get a better price and to know it is there when you or your tile installer are ready to go.

PERCEPTION

Perhaps the biggest challenge we face in farming today is the battle we are fighting with non-farmers.  As urban and even rural Americans have less connection to the farm and farmers, our difficulties will likely grow.  The only way this will get better is if YOU take the initiative to talk to people in your community and even outside your area about agriculture. Yes, others can and will do something, but we need EVERYONE to talk to non-farmers.  I know you may not be comfortable with that, but I still encourage you to try.

When it comes to tiling, here are some talking points you can use with non-farmers:

  1. The tile farmers want to put in their fields is the exact same tile people put around their homes when they are built.
  2. All tiling does is lower the water table.  It does not remove all soil moisture.  Since plant roots will NOT grow into a water table, we need the water table lowered so our crops can thrive.
  3. If ground is fully saturated and untiled, when a big rain comes the rain will have nowhere to go but to run off the field.  When it runs off it will carry soil, chemical, and fertilizer with it.  In tiled land where the water table has been lowered to 3 or 4 feet down in the soil, there is holding capacity for rain water.
  4. Because of point # 3, erosion is significantly reduced when tile is added to a field.  University studies on average show 40% to 60% erosion reduction when tile is added to a field.
  5. Because of point # 3, flooding is reduced when land is tiled.  University studies on average show about a 15% to 30% reduction in peak flows in a watershed when tile is added.
  6. When water seeps through several feet of soil, the water is filtered.  By the time water reaches tile lines, it is usually drinking water quality.  Visually compare water leaving tile lines to field run-off during a storm.  Which would you rather drink?
  7. The drinking water standard in the U.S. for nitrate-nitrogen is 10 parts per million.  IT IS NOT ZERO!  Water is just fine with some nitrate in it.  We just want that level to be below 10 ppm so it’s safe to drink.
  8. If you ever think farmers are the polluters of water, I encourage you to pull water quality samples in rivers near you.  Pull one sample before the river goes through a city and one sample on the downstream side of the city.  Compare the results and feel free to show them to your non-farm friends.  Farmers overall are doing a great job.  We just need to tell the story.