[AT] Flail mowers - now pasture drainage

[Greg Hass]

In our area, the answer to all drainage problems is one word; TILE. In 
fact at least 90% of farmland in our county is tiled. Our county is also 
known for having a lot of flat land; in fact I have one 35 acres that 
the tiler said varied less than 6 inches over the whole field. Just to 
be sure we are talking apples and apples I will describe tiling in our 
area. It all starts out with a main line, size determined by the acreage 
draining into it ( 15 acres requires a 6 inch main whereas 80 acres 
requires a 12 inch main). From there other lines branch out across the 
field. Here we use either 3 or 4 inch tile and that connects to the 
main. When I tiled the 40 I live on we used 4 inch tile runs spaced 50 
feet apart. On some land I got from my dad 10 years ago I used 3 inch 
tile spaced 30 feet apart.  On another field, it had been tiled 50 feet 
apart many years ago, but one third of it took an extra week to dry. I 
had the tiler dig some up and nothing  was plugged as he had thought but 
that area had very tight subsoil so the answer was, on that third of the 
field, to tile in between the runs making them 25 feet apart. Now the 
field is all dry at the same time. By the way, in all my examples, we 
are talking about plastic tile. At home here, in a wet year the area 
between the tile would stay wet and make harvest difficult and if it 
were a wet year, injure the crop between tile runs. Being as this is my 
best field, and 3 years ago we actually made some money on the farm, we 
had 3 inch tile put between the older runs making it 25 feet between 
tile. Just to add figures, adding the extra tile used 20,000 feet of 3 
inch tile. Because the tile is run to grade using GPS or laser, the 
depth varies from place to place in the field; some spots could be 2 
feet deep, others 5 feet deep. No good tiler in our area will run less 
that 2 feet deep in any area. Over 30 years ago, my uncle had his farm 
tiled by a well know tiler, but many said he did a good job but 
installed too much shallow tile. He tiled this farm into a road ditch 
instead of digging through the road to the deep county ditch. In fact, 
some of the tile was only a foot deep and in certain spots would have to 
raise the plow some to avoid hitting tile. Because of this his grandson, 
who now owns the land had it retiled last fall. They just pretended it 
was not tiled and ripped through the existing tile as though it wasn't 
there.
As for Charlies remarks, I both agree and disagree. Yes, it is far 
better to drain directly into a ditch if you can. Having said that, we 
have an area 60 miles from here that we go through every month or so 
that has hundreds of acres of land being pumped. These fields are below 
the water levels of the ditches which drain into Lake Huron. The last 
time I drove through there a month ago, I counted at least 30 pumps 
running and emptying into the road ditches. The tile drains into about 
12 ft. dia. silos built into the ground and the water is pumped from 
there. Some fields are potatoes but others are ordinary crops. I'm not 
sure but have heard pumping costs are from 5 to 20 dollars per acre. 
Ramble over.
            Greg Hass