What's New at the Farm? Drainage Tile Does the Job

Well, at least the bulk of the transplanting is done. With all the rain we’ve had these past six weeks, planting has been more of a challenge than usual. The subject I wanted to cover today is the use of drain tiles to improve field conditions and make otherwise unusable fields into productive fields. If you’ve followed this blog you’ll know we installed drain tile at the Movie Palace field last summer:
 
We’ve owned this field for some time, but it was always too wet to get much planted. We like to get on the ground as early as possible and getting on this field in May was all but impossible. Here’s a shot off this field taken June 5th after several inches of rain:

This field was dry enough on the 10th of June, thanks largely to the drain tile, to harrow. June 10th was a warm and sunny day so the ground dried considerably before we started bedding and laying plastic on the following day:

Here’s a shot taken on the 12th of the plastic laid and transplanting commencing:

Planting started on the 14th and carried over into the 15th, and now is 95% completed as we see here:

Without drain tile we couldn’t have planted this field this year. Although there was standing water in the field on the 5th, we were working the ground a week later. Our whole main farm is drain tiled; much was installed in the 1980s and 1990s and that makes the ground workable early in the season.
Until next week, enjoy the longest days of the year.
Brian