getting new tile

[glennster]

tile started showing up. 18 inch mains for a quarter section field. old clay tile couldnt keep up with all the heavy spring rains. mains going about 7 ft deep to get slope. will terminate in my creek close to a mile of 18 inch.

 

[john in la]

I have had this discussion with Bruce in the past. I just don’t understand why people tile a field. We get over 60 inches of rain and no one uses tile.
Only reason I can see for tile is you are not willing to give up 2 rows of corn to build a ditch.

 

[Keith Williams]

I have had this discussion with Bruce in the past. I just don’t understand why people tile a field. We get over 60 inches of rain and no one uses tile.
Only reason I can see for tile is you are not willing to give up 2 rows of corn to build a ditch.

John,
Simply, topography and soil types.

I just installed 1000 feet of 6 inch perforated drainage to try to prevent the ditch you talk about from being washed acrost my field.
I have contour strips on my farm to prevent erosion. They help but once a ditch starts we have to do something to stop it from getting too deep to cross with equipment. Grass waterways are used with subsurface drainage per USDA.

The water will not just percolate down because there is a clay layer below the topsoil that prevents it from going down fast. Then we have sheet erosion from heavy rains or as we call them "gully washers".

We also have wet weather springs in our fields. A clay layer at a certain elevation will stop water from percolating further. The water will come to the surface and form a wet spot in the field. Drainage tile or deep tillage can give the water a way to escape.

Keith

 

[8850dave]

tile started showing up. 18 inch mains for a quarter section field. old clay tile couldnt keep up with all the heavy spring rains. mains going about 7 ft deep to get slope. will terminate in my creek close to a mile of 18 inch.

New field tiles really help drainage and will pay for themselves and will put you into a higher tax bracket with the extra income in the future lol

 

[BillinCentralMO]

I have had this discussion with Bruce in the past. I just don’t understand why people tile a field. We get over 60 inches of rain and no one uses tile.
Only reason I can see for tile is you are not willing to give up 2 rows of corn to build a ditch.

It has extended our growing season by about 60 days and transformed farming here. Any ditch we would try to maintain will quickly become a small canyon and we would lose a lot of topsoil

 

[RBnWA]

tile started showing up. 18 inch mains for a quarter section field. old clay tile couldnt keep up with all the heavy spring rains. mains going about 7 ft deep to get slope. will terminate in my creek close to a mile of 18 inch.

Tile a great investment in wet ground. Money well spent. RB

 

[glennster]

I have had this discussion with Bruce in the past. I just don’t understand why people tile a field. We get over 60 inches of rain and no one uses tile.
Only reason I can see for tile is you are not willing to give up 2 rows of corn to build a ditch.

this spring we had 30 acres underwater from a heavy rain. took 2 weeks to dry down enough for a replant. then had another rain come thru and it ponded again. at 400 dollars a bag for seed corn, plus application, it pencils out pretty quick.

 

[1948CaseVAI]

I have had this discussion with Bruce in the past. I just don’t understand why people tile a field. We get over 60 inches of rain and no one uses tile.
Only reason I can see for tile is you are not willing to give up 2 rows of corn to build a ditch.

This forum is the first and only place I have ever heard of anyone actually laying pipes in a field for drainage. I grew up in the 60s and 70 in western KS and had anyone ever suggested such a thing he might have been kicked out of morning coffee at the cafe.

 

[Fritz Maurer]

If you put a pipe in the ground you don’t have to give up even two rows.

Ditches are a pain and promote erosion in certain cases.

 

[504]

We have a company here that send crews to Texas,and S Carolina, and everywhere in between. Just plowing in and trenching tile. Port Industries builds trenchers,Timewell Tile builds the pipe and installs it.

 

[Bruce from Can.]

I have had this discussion with Bruce in the past. I just don’t understand why people tile a field. We get over 60 inches of rain and no one uses tile.
Only reason I can see for tile is you are not willing to give up 2 rows of corn to build a ditch.

We have drainage ditches to run the water into, drainage tiles deliver the excess water from the field to the drainage ditch. Water doesn’t move freely through clay/loam soil. Without drainage tiles this year, several of my fields would be mud flats, and not planted. While I have no idea what the topography or soil is like in the area where you live. All I can tell you is farms without drainage have plenty of standing water in the fields this year. , and areas of these same fields that are not under water are turning yellow. My tile drained fields are looking good despite the constant rains this season, and have no standing water. That’s why we put in tile drainage, with it you can get a crop, without on a year like this you are going to have nothing to harvest.

 

[EFV]

John Johnston,the father of tile drainage in the US first did it in Seneca County NY in 1838.

 

[Fritz Maurer]

This forum is the first and only place I have ever heard of anyone actually laying pipes in a field for drainage. I grew up in the 60s and 70 in western KS and had anyone ever suggested such a thing he might have been kicked out of morning coffee at the cafe.

What, then, was the western Kansas farmers solution to a wet spot? I don’t know the topography/ rainfall of western Kansas. Do you even have wet spots out there?

 

[caterpillar guy]

I just got a transfer tile put in to change a drain tile from crossing to the next property north of us. We put in 8 inch solid flexible smoothwall pipe . They trenched in about 1500 feet in about 5.5 hours once the trencher got started and part of it was between 9and 11 feet deep. started at 5ft and ended at 5 foot connected the old 6 inch to the 8 and had 10 corrugated at the bottom end for about 60 feet. all running into a 15 inch . For deep tile that is the only way to put it in. The guy told me they rent a boot from a place in OH and can do 15 inch I think he said and told me something about putting in up to 24's but would be 20 foot sticks for that. Sure did work nice for the deep work with no digging and laying it back or needing coffins ( trench boxes) to drag along the ditch to work in. He did say that some of the real deep portion some of it started to cave in as the boot came off the section. I didn't notice it but he was back filling it as they went and had the dozer there to finish the leveling and filling. They left a ridge about level to 2 feet high to settle in. Was not cheap but faster than an excavator and less mess . I'm sold if I had deep tile to install again that is the cats meow. Deep meaning deeper than they can plow in and they can plow in up to 6 foot. If I could get the short video to show I would.

 

[caterpillar guy]

The flexible smooth wall must be something pretty new .I've been looking at how to do this for a number of years now and this was the first time I had heard of it. It looks like regular tile on the outside and smooth on the inside like the big smooth wall stick tile are. just is flexible enough to put through a tile boot. Told me the machine cost with GPS and all the goodies close to a Million dollars and weighs around 80-100,000 lbs. Machine is huge with a 50 ft detach it hung off the back of the trailer about 6or 7 feet.

 

[caterpillar guy]

How big are the old crock tile smaller or just can't flow the volume at the same size? We have sod waterways for erosion but with what we get for heavy rains and spring thaw run off it will wash ditches in the hollows if we didn't have them. I know our rains are not anywheres near 4-8 inches some places get and more but a couple inches will wash fast if it comes fast. Yes we only get about 30 inches annual rain fall. When topsoil is only about 6-10 inches deep and less on top of hills we need to keep all of it we can.

 

[glennster]

How big are the old crock tile smaller or just can't flow the volume at the same size? We have sod waterways for erosion but with what we get for heavy rains and spring thaw run off it will wash ditches in the hollows if we didn't have them. I know our rains are not anywheres near 4-8 inches some places get and more but a couple inches will wash fast if it comes fast. Yes we only get about 30 inches annual rain fall. When topsoil is only about 6-10 inches deep and less on top of hills we need to keep all of it we can.

the old main is on the south end of the field. it is 12 inch clay tile. the p/o let the neighbor to the south hook to my main. we are running the new main starting at the south east corner and running north to the property line, then heading west across that end of the 160, then crossing my 80 to the creek. with farm land around here going for 18k an acre, putting little ditches in doesnt make sense.

 

[john in la]

What, then, was the western Kansas farmers solution to a wet spot? I don’t know the topography/ rainfall of western Kansas. Do you even have wet spots out there?

You could always level the field removing the low (wet) spot.
Around here they use laser level today.
In the past they had a trailer maybe 80 feet long with 3 grader blades under it.

 

[glennster]

You could always level the field removing the low (wet) spot.
Around here they use laser level today.
In the past they had a trailer maybe 80 feet long with 3 grader blades under it.

if you level the field how will the water drain? you will not be able to farm it.

 

[Brendon-KS]

This forum is the first and only place I have ever heard of anyone actually laying pipes in a field for drainage. I grew up in the 60s and 70 in western KS and had anyone ever suggested such a thing he might have been kicked out of morning coffee at the cafe.

Western Kansas is very different from the areas that utilize drain tile. Here are typically fighting a lack of moisture and so, as you say, a person would be thought of as odd if they did anything more than scratch a slight ditch to drain a low spot. However, just because that's the case in Kansas doesn't mean that in other regions it is very different and farmers fight completely the opposite problem that we do here. Tiling fields for drainage is extremely common (due to its necessity) in many areas of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and elsewhere in the midwest.