# Drainage project 2018



## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

Putting a 12" main in threw a hill.Replacing a 100 yr old clay tile.Took the top 3' off with excavator to get the plow deep enough.


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## PaMike (Dec 7, 2013)

Wow, thats some black soil...


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## stack em up (Mar 7, 2013)

PaMike said:


> Wow, thats some black soil...


Don't be racist Mike. It prefers to not be discriminated against.


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## PaMike (Dec 7, 2013)

stack em up said:


> Don't be racist Mike. It prefers to not be discriminated against.


I could take this in a whole bunch of directions. None of which would be appropriate, I suppose..


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## paoutdoorsman (Apr 23, 2016)

I miss that rich black Minnesota soil!

That's quite the tile pipe Cy!


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Fine looking soil Cy.

Regards, Mike


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## IHCman (Aug 27, 2011)

your subsoil looks better than our topsoil here.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

Excavator is helping pull the plow.12" boot on plow pulls pretty hard.90% of the tile project will be 4" spaced every 80'.


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## farmersamm (Nov 2, 2017)

No internal drainage problems here. Hard clay.....the rain just all runs down the creeks :lol:

Mr Rogers: "Children, can you say Dustbowl?" :lol:


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## stack em up (Mar 7, 2013)

Wanted to pattern tile another 80 yet this year. With everything being late, doubt it's gonna happen.

Brother got fined for parking semis on the road. Simply no other way aside from using gravity wagons and that's a no.


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## KYhaymaker (Jun 7, 2018)

Wow thats some good dirt. You would need a rockhammer and maybe some slurry and blasting caps to get that done here lol.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

The tile plow in action putting in 4" laterals.




__ https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=2178426642170036


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## r82230 (Mar 1, 2016)

Cy,

Every time I look at your pictures/videos, I want to say "could you ship some (just 1' would be OK) of that top soil the old glaciers took from Michigan and left in your neck of the woods?" With just 1' of that on top of my present 6" to 10". would be GREATLY appreciated.  I even throw a few rocks your way if you desire. 

Larry


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## stack em up (Mar 7, 2013)

Talked with our tile man, his goal is to be done with our 80 by thanksgiving. That means the beans gotta be off first! New 24" main and laterals every 40'. Gonna spend more in tile alone than my great grandpa did on that half section!!!!

Have contemplated buying our own tile plow and tractor for it, but it's just so much easier writing 1 check than multiples. My hand gets cramps anyway signing my life away as it is.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

stack em up said:


> Talked with our tile man, his goal is to be done with our 80 by thanksgiving. That means the beans gotta be off first! New 24" main and laterals every 40'. Gonna spend more in tile alone than my great grandpa did on that half section!!!!
> 
> Have contemplated buying our own tile plow and tractor for it, but it's just so much easier writing 1 check than multiples. My hand gets cramps anyway signing my life away as it is.


That must be some muck to space it all at 40'The standard here is 80' but i do have some at 33'.Their next job is all at 60' a 400 acre project.

24" ouch $$$,hope you don't have to go far.


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## stack em up (Mar 7, 2013)

swmnhay said:


> That must be some muck to space it all at 40'The standard here is 80' but i do have some at 33'.Their next job is all at 60' a 400 acre project.
> 
> 24" ouch $$$,hope you don't have to go far.


It's SOP around here to go 40. Our elevation is lower than yours with you being closer to the ridge. The big main is cuz it's gonna be our own private main to drain another quarter into it. It's 3/4 mile from St James Lake, actually lays lower than the lake. Takes a big tile to take the water away.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

stack em up said:


> It's SOP around here to go 40. Our elevation is lower than yours with you being closer to the ridge. The big main is cuz it's gonna be our own private main to drain another quarter into it. It's 3/4 mile from St James Lake, actually lays lower than the lake. Takes a big tile to take the water away.


Yea it sucks if you dont have enough fall.

I did a main a few years ago with 3 neighbors that drains 800 acres that is a 18" for 3/4 mile.It should of been a 24"

Have 15' of fall in 3/4 mile there.


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## stack em up (Mar 7, 2013)

Our tile man does 24” mains at a minimum. He supposedly had to lease a different tile plow this spring to put in a 30” main. I’d hate to write the check for that one. Tile ain’t cheap!


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

They just got all the pipe in.Have some cleanup to do yet.

88,000' of pipe


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

swmnhay said:


> Excavator is helping pull the plow.12" boot on plow pulls pretty hard.90% of the tile project will be 4" spaced every 80'.


when tiled our gumbo it was 4" on 40 centers. I few years since wish we had dropped to 30' centers;.


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## pede58 (Oct 27, 2015)

This thread brings back some memories, some good some not, helped my uncle lay tile before I was old enough to pull levers. Layed a lot of clay and cement before plastic came around, targets before lasers and seen the transition to the modern era, had my hands on the first plastic that went in the ground. Anyways around here with the black dirt down to 4ft general rule of thumb for spacing was that for every 1ft you went in the ground the tile would draw out 10ft. My uncle died before pattern systems became popular, use to just head it towards the wet spot.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

pede58 said:


> This thread brings back some memories, some good some not, helped my uncle lay tile before I was old enough to pull levers. Layed a lot of clay and cement before plastic came around, targets before lasers and seen the transition to the modern era, had my hands on the first plastic that went in the ground. Anyways around here with the black dirt down to 4ft general rule of thumb for spacing was that for every 1ft you went in the ground the tile would draw out 10ft. My uncle died before pattern systems became popular, use to just head it towards the wet spot.


they determine spacing needed by soil type.Most of what I have is 80' but some is at 33'.One of the first things the tile contractor does is look at the soil maps to help determine what spacing is needed.That and dig a hole with backhoe if in question.Also just pushing a tile probe in the ground tells them a lot.The first time I tiled 40 years ago the contractor had me do some probing and explained how you felt grit in the clay subsoil so it would drain well with 80' spacings.

He said at one time the standard was 200' spacings here but it ended up being very uneven drainage.

This farm basically had a tile threw each low spot.Some clay put in in early 1900's which was breaking up.Some concrete from a county tile project in the 30's? And some plastic put in about 1980.

The cement tile is now parelled on each side 40' away so when ever the cement tile deteriates it can either be destroyed or replaced without really effecting the new tile


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## pede58 (Oct 27, 2015)

It just amazes me the amount of tile layed with a spade, I've seen it as deep as 8ft with 3-4ft being common.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

pede58 said:


> It just amazes me the amount of tile layed with a spade, I've seen it as deep as 8ft with 3-4ft being common.


Spade or a slip shoe and horses.

When my grandfather and Uncle Willis (they were orphaned) first came to Indiana from Ohio, Grandpas first real job was hand digging tile, it took three guys, one digging in the trench, one handing the shovel out and third guy up top scraping the shovels off as thats how sticky our clay is here without drainage.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

mlappin said:


> Spade or a slip shoe and horses.
> When my grandfather and Uncle Willis (they were orphaned) first came to Indiana from Ohio, Grandpas first real job was hand digging tile, it took three guys, one digging in the trench, one handing the shovel out and third guy up top scraping the shovels off as thats how sticky our clay is here without drainage.


we were just talking about this last night.Its hard to find some of the old clay tile because they replaced the subsoil in bottom and top soil on top vs a trencher that mixes all the soil together and gets replaced in trench.The mixed soil is easy to see when digging with a back hoe.

I recall as a kid some old timers saying how terrible it was to mix the soil when trenching in tile compared to the old way with a spade


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## PaMike (Dec 7, 2013)

How many acres does 88000' of pipe drain?


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

PaMike said:


> How many acres does 88000' of pipe drain?


150 acres tillable

Plus about 8000 existing = 96,000 total.


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## PaMike (Dec 7, 2013)

swmnhay said:


> 150 acres tillable
> 
> Plus about 8000 existing = 96,000 total.


Yield was suffering prior to the tiling work due to water table issues? Will there be a big jump up in yield due to this work?


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

PaMike said:


> Yield was suffering prior to the tiling work due to water table issues? Will there be a big jump up in yield due to this work?


some years not a lot of gain some years it could be 60 bu or more.

Actually makeing a good farm better.


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

What the tile map looks like.There is 189 connections.Some extra because of power cables for windmills.


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