Drainage to maximise yield

To be sustainable, today’s farmers have to increase production and minimise risk. One way to do this is to drain the land properly.

Drainage to maximise yield
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At Nampo last year, Agri Drainage used one of its three Case IH Quadtrac and tile plow combinations to demonstrate the fact that the company had installed more than one million metres of subsurface drainage pipes in South Africa to date.

Farmers Jaro and Stephan Geldenhuys noticed a substantial increase in yield after installing subsurface drainage in certain of their lands. As the cost of installing such a system with the method then in use in South Africa was prohibitively high, they travelled to the US to find a more cost-effective system. The result was the Agri Drainage Company.

The latest model Tile Plow works on a Trimble RTK GPS control system to an accuracy of less than 20mm, while modern design technology ensures a customised solution and an effective drainage system. This entails a detailed survey of the client’s land, conducted by Agri Drainage experts.

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A comprehensive plan for subsurface drainage is then discussed with the client, who can proceed with the plan as a whole or do it in phases. Installation involves placing perforated pipes at a gradient or slope, buried at a suitable depth below the soil surface to prevent waterlogging. Once installation begins, one Tile Plow unit can install 4 000m to 10 000m daily.

The Quadtrac tractor has sufficient power to pull the Tile Plow at the required depth. The Tile Plow consists of a heavy-duty, sub-soiler tine raised and lowered by the tractor’s hydraulics, with the working depth automatically controlled by computer.

This ensures that the drainage pipe is installed at the correct depth to allow a fall to the pipe and let the surplus water drain into the run-off ditches. The perforated plastic pipe is run out from a large reel and laid out in the land ahead of the tractor and plow combination. As the unit moves forward, the pipe is fed down the back of the tine and placed at the pre-determined level.

Surface drainage
Differing gradients on a land can lead to ponding. Effective management eliminates these factors and leads to a higher yield. In the past, this was achieved by ‘land levelling’ to a uniform set grade. But the process is extremely costly due to the large volume of soil moved. ‘Land forming’ is more cost-effective. It uses software to create a design to achieve the same results while moving just a small amount of the soil. Infiltration rate tests determine water flow to enable more accurate planning.