How to drain a crop field

[kkhorn]

I live in central ky and have a 50 acre grain field with a water problem. This field is mostly flat but the lowest portion is the lowest area in the surrounding 3 or 4 hundred acre area.
very productive maury and mcafee loam soil that drains well, but in heavy rain periods (like this summer) I have an area about 5 to 10 acres that has standing water for a week or so. needless to say this is hard on corn and beans. I would like to drain this area. The only way I see to do this is to pump this water out using tiles to drain field to lowest spot and a sump- type system. Over a rise about 600 yards away I have a spring that surfaces and runs through a ditch about 50 yds then disappears into a hole. This never backs up even in heaviest rains. My plan is to pump flooded area to this ditch. My questions are: am I crazy? will this work? what kind of pump system would be best? Returning this land to productivity would be very beneficial financially and aesthetically. Grain land rents for $300 per acre here, so it would make sense to spend as much as maybe $10 to 15 thousand dollars on project. Any ideas or comments?

 

[M5farms]

how far would you have to ditch it to drain it and how many acres would be lost along the drainage following the natural contours .

another option is to dig a pond

 

[Gary Fowler]

A large irrigation pump would work for what you have. You would need to put the pump on a platform so it never gets under water but you could have it on remote start so that if a float mechanism rises it starts the pump. An electric pump would be easy to put on a float system like a basement sump pump. Engine powered might take a few mow bells and whistles to make it work but possible. Suction line would need to be in deepest point and pump fairly close to the suction end, then you could run discharge as far as you need to go. A 12" discharge size pump would move a lot of water pretty fast.

 

[Big Barn]

I have a gas powered floating pump. Self priming. Uses 6" lay flat discharge hose. 800-900 gallons per minute.
Terry

 

[boggen]

as soon as you put a pump into the mix... cost / labor / maintenance. goes up quickly and puts you in the hurt. you need something that gravity flows the water to were ever. make it a drainage ditch, or a pipe.

siphon would be next best thing.

and making a sump pump like thing or anything with a pump the very last thing on the list.

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if you could get in there with say an excavator. and cut you a deep trench through the hill, would more likely be better. and then drop a pipe in, and bury it all. to some little area were it all drains into.

getting some bulldozers in there and reshaping entire area to put in a drainage ditch might work as well.

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you would most likely get into some pretty good fines. if you tried to drill a well or 2 and drain water into the wells. to much water pollution.

 

[FarmWrench]

AgPHD has a lot on pump station drainage. Also check out the New Ag Talk website. Search tile or lift pump.

A good drainage contractor will find ways of finding an outlet. Would you mind giving GPS coordinates? Google earth will let you get elevation #'s so you can plan with that if you are not already using GPS auto steer. (That builds an elevation map in the data. At least mine does.) Don't forget you are supposed to fill out a federal form for anything tile, even repairs. Maybe surface drainage would give you a better ROI? Find a tractor pulled scraper.

Check with other farmers before visiting the NRCS. Some offices house environmental crazies. EPA will someday claim that land as their own, thanks to the water rules.

I'm building my second tile plow.

 

[Deerherd]

I would first run a subsoiler to break up the hard pan and temporarily ditch it after fall harvest. If that didn't adequately take care of the problem I would create a sacrificial small pond/swale/ditch. If that is unacceptable hiring a good drainage contractor who knows the government regulations and paperwork can help you spend your 10-15k budget.

 

[farmer2009]

First welcome to TBN.

From your description you are in red clay soil over the cave system. Correct?

How tall of a rise are you talking?

I'm thinking a grass waterway for that distance. If done properly would be of no interference to farming. Pickup and drive across set down again. Does need to be bushhoged twice a year or more. Maybe cut for hay.

 

[LD1]

as soon as you put a pump into the mix... cost / labor / maintenance. goes up quickly and puts you in the hurt. you need something that gravity flows the water to were ever. make it a drainage ditch, or a pipe.

siphon would be next best thing.

and making a sump pump like thing or anything with a pump the very last thing on the list.

Agreed.

Pumping is the last thing you want.

Ditch/swale it

Or tile it and possibly eave a standpipe.

But talking about 5 or 10 acres of water, and 50 acres draining into that, you will never find a pump big enough. There is always gonna be that higher than expected rainfall that is more than the pump will handle before 10 acres of crop is lost

 

[Fossil Farm]

Agreed.

Pumping is the last thing you want.

Ditch/swale it

Or tile it and possibly eave a standpipe.

But talking about 5 or 10 acres of water, and 50 acres draining into that, you will never find a pump big enough. There is always gonna be that higher than expected rainfall that is more than the pump will handle before 10 acres of crop is lost

1 acre inch of water is 27,154 gallons. 10 acres, 1 inch deep is 271,540 gallons. I am sure it is deeper than an inch in places. I don't remember exactly (you can look it up) but I believe soybeans do not like to be wet for more than 12 hours. Corn can be in standing water for about 24 hours without major damage. There will always be some damage, but not major.

So just a very rough calculation, 271,000 gallons removed in 12 hours means you will need to remove 22,500 gallons an hour. Figure out the price of a pump that can do that vs. your other options, of gravity drainage, a different crop(?), no crop in that area(?), plant it each year and hope for the best, etc. Hope I am close on my calculations, sometimes I put the decimal point in the wrong place.

If you could get a survey of the elevation differences in the field and to the ditch you are working with, that would be very helpful in making a decision on what will work the best for you. Good luck.