How to drain a crop field

[kebo]

This may be a dumb suggestion, but what if you brought in enough dirt/top soil to level up this 5-10 acre low spot, so the water would spread out over a much larger area, rather than it just settle in that low spot after a heavy rain??

Just curious, but how deep is the water in the deepest point, after a heavy rain? We talking a few inches, or a foot or more??

 

[DANOCHEESE]

Buy a cheap transit and get a lay for the land. A simple swale may work. Pumps are not your friend, they were used here quite a bit and the maintenance will make you growl. A local contractor for cable TV or telecom may be able to directional drill in a small tile for you tp get under a rise in the land. Elevations are your key, water likes to seek the lowest point and not go up hill ( did I just type that)

 

[FarmWrench]

Love the directional drill idea until you get the $60+ per foot price for the hole. Sometimes it is the only option. If it is a road some highway departments are surprisingly eager to place a culvert, others will fight you with everything they have.

 

[kkhorn]

Thanks for all the input. To clarify a few things: the "rise" is about 20 foot in elevation, and the spot in question is in the corner of my 100 acre farm. Therefore any kind of ditch or natural drainage doesn't seem possible. Simply stated, if I stand in the low spot and look around, there are hundreds of acres higher than me. There is a neighbor who (stupidly) built a house adjacent to my property and I am expecting him to share the expenses. He owns a 3 acre lot that has been under 2 to 10 inches of water most of the summer. His small kids swim in his driveway (literally). My farm drains exceptionally well, with little or no clay content. Any attempts at digging a pond are fruitless, and anyway you cant grow grain on a pond. In extreme wet conditions the water table seems to rise to about 1 foot above this area. I was thinking if I dug a sump and pumped down to 3 or 4 feet below ground level, that would give me a cushion for when it did come an extended rainy period. Can anyone tell me the approx. cost per foot of tiling? My plan is to construct a sump in lowest spot with tiles radiating from this sump to direct water to the sump. Then lay underground pipe from pump to drainage ditch.

 

[FarmWrench]

Tile cost varies by size, and installation method. "Here" $1-1.50/foot/36" deep just to open the trench. Tile, backfilling, hand placement-bedding add. I built a plow for $2500 and a weeks+ of work. It will only do 4" tile, 3.5' deep.

4" can be under fifty cents. You size by area, water removal rate and fall.

NRCS man gave me a drainage guide. If you want I can set up a drop box file as it is big. Plow plans I could add as well.

Muck farms here have pto pumps that only lift the water a few feet max but 24"-36" discharge and thousands of gallons per minute. A few hours with one would move that pond.

If you have RFD TV. Watch AgPHD on Tuesday night. They do a lot and have a two DVD instructional kit, with side rule for calculations on tile size quantity.....I spent the $100 or so and it is worth it. I'll give my contact info to a private message.

 

[kkhorn]

This is google view of farm. lower right is wet spot and neighbors house. The place I want to drain to is near top center to left of treeline.

 

[farmer2009]

If you have a smart phone AgPHD also has a drainage app that's free.

 

[bigtiller]

The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in your town will be your best bet for tiling information. There is probably tile in your farm field now that was laid decades ago. You just have to find it and sometimes the NRCS will have a map of it. Look in the road ditch around and near your farm for a county tile inlet. The NRCS office should be able to give you a list of companies that do this kind of work in your area.