Drying up field ... does subsoiling really work?

[oldnslo]

what type of soil is under the clay? What is the water table like is that area? Where I live when rally wet from heavy rain water table can be 2 - 2 1/2 ft so nothing drains until the water table drops.

Subsoiling can help if soil type and conditions are right. Typically well draining soil under hard pan and subsoiled when dry. You might need a sub boiler shank that goes down 18" or more to ensure under hard pan all the time which takes some power to pull.

 

[boostmg]

what type of soil is under the clay? What is the water table like is that area? Where I live when rally wet from heavy rain water table can be 2 - 2 1/2 ft so nothing drains until the water table drops.

Subsoiling can help if soil type and conditions are right. Typically well draining soil under hard pan and subsoiled when dry. You might need a sub boiler shank that goes down 18" or more to ensure under hard pan all the time which takes some power to pull.

Not sure haven’t ever dig deeper than the clay. Not sure about water table. Is there a way to figure that out?

 

[PuffyC]

Tried subsoiling as part of a many-year quest to fix a drainage problem. All it got me was a lot of wasted time and money.

 

[Sonny580]

I sub soil 3 feet deep here every year and have never had water problems since, so in answer to your question--- YES it works!

 

[ROUSTABOUT]

Note when you subsoil that pasture, it's over for a while. Your tractor will sink to the hilt for a few years. Not only does water drain into the cuts, water soaks both sides of the cuts. If it's a sizable field you'll have go gather up all the chains in the county just to reach you. We stuck once, took 300' to reach us. 20' chains, lucky we had enough. Putting it all back up was the worst part.

 

[ROUSTABOUT]

You have free water available and wanting to get rid of it? Stream fed ponds draining there?

 

[CalG]

Try an area planted to dakon radish this season. Say four rows of 100 feet or so. See what happens, It can't hurt, and costs nearly nothing.

Don't pick the very WORST /wet/ area, pick a spot they will grow. They certainly WILL IMPROVE THE SOIL , just might get through that clay too.

 

[boostmg]

Try an area planted to dakon radish this season. Say four rows of 100 feet or so. See what happens, It can't hurt, and costs nearly nothing.

Don't pick the very WORST /wet/ area, pick a spot they will grow. They certainly WILL IMPROVE THE SOIL , just might get through that clay too.

Thought about this. Maybe i will i have to figure out how to prepare the ground first

 

[Raul-02]

if others have done subsoiling on wetter fields

Not yet.
I have a slope to my property, so nature already has that covered.
I have a heavy dense hard pan clay layer. but I also have many springs.
The conflict I have is: Will subsoling make it worse or better.
Once, decades ago I hand dug a trench the length of my mowed back lawn about 50 yards. I dug about 10" wide by about hip deep. I laid crushed stone and perf-pipe and more stone and it worked great for a while and then (because I didn't know to use drainage cloth) it silted up. I may do it all over again and use connecting pipe out to where the wet spots are. But I'd love to see if subsoiling will do it.
So far the one spot I tried hasn't shown much improvement.

 

[erikjohn67]

Can you post some pictures of the property? I can help but would like to see what your dealing with.