Fixing Problematic Areas on Your Farm
Chad Henderson discusses the lessons learned and benefits achieved from implementing tiling and lift stations in his farming operation. Despite initial skepticism, tiling has proven essential, especially in problematic field areas. Chad highlights a case where tiling transformed a previously unproductive section into viable crop land. The discussion underscores the importance of understanding soil profiles and making data-driven decisions for efficient water management and increased return on investment (ROI) in crop production.
00:00 You know, there's been a lot I've learned about tiling and, you know, lift stations in general. I can promise you that I'm three years in 00:07 and I can tell you 30 years worth of what not to do. And, you know, they told me this to start with and they said, Hey, you don't wanna do this? 00:13 I'm like, ah, well, it'll be all right. It's in the south. Yep. They were right. You don't wanna do certain things. 00:18 But there's one thing here that I wanna show y'all that I'm very proud of. Um, and you'll see it right here behind us. 00:24 See the corn here, that's kind of yellow behind us. It's not kind of yellow, it's a lot of yellow. So we've had probably six inches 00:30 of rain in the last 60 days. The corn was planted on April 9th. And so that puts us about, what, five weeks old? Mm-Hmm. 00:39 Approximately five weeks old. And it's just, this is a spot in the field that's been troublesome for us. 00:44 This is a a DS trial number one. Mm-Hmm. And it's obviously three years, three years old. Mm-Hmm. Right? 00:51 Yeah. We installed it in the summer of 21. Summer Of 21. So when we installed this, this was a spot that we, 00:58 in a year like this, we wouldn't have a crop here. We would've, if we would've got it planted, it wouldn't have survived. 01:04 More than likely we wouldn't have got it planted. We would've just pieced in around it. That lower vein here that you see 01:09 is just been troublesome for us. And we installed a DS pipe here. It's all four inch tile, 40 foot centers. Mm-Hmm. 01:17 And the lift station after I got working properly, you know, absolutely. Kinda a little trouble in itself, uh, has done spectacular. 01:24 Biggest thing for you is consistency, right? Like from a, looking at someone with an operation as big as yours is, and time is of the essence. 01:32 So what could we do to help you with time? What can we do to help you with being able to plant all at the same time versus having to wait 01:39 for something to dry out and come back and redo it. That's moving equipment. That's little things like that. And so from a consistency perspective across the field 01:47 for the crop, from a time perspective with moving, moving equipment and then actually being able to show 01:55 how much water you need versus what you don't need. Um, one of my favorite comments that we've ever made about this field was when we 02:01 taught, we did the first two trials. We did this one and we did the wet hole. And the installer would tell you there's more water in this 02:07 field than there is at the wet hole. Well, this was the field that I had said, give me a field that you wouldn't touch. 02:14 You wouldn't tile. Yes, Yes, yes. We was riding around. Give me a field that you wouldn't tile. 02:19 Exactly. That would be exactly pretty uniform. We pulled up out here and I said, this is your field. They said, oh, it's perfect. I'm like, 02:24 it don't really need tiling. Like it, it's pretty good. It's got a little spot here or there, but it don't really need tiling. 02:28 Right, right. We started tiling and he said, there, there's More water Coming there. There's more water 02:33 here than there is anywhere. Right. And so it just, it goes to show, um, what we do and don't know about the, what, 02:39 what happens in the soil profile with the water, because you can't see it. It's underground. Um, the beauty of 02:44 that lift station is you set, you set that water table and it's going to pull out what is over that water table, and it's gonna keep that consistent water under your ground 02:54 allowing for Yes, it's yellow, but as you said before, it would've been brown historically. Yeah. My, my hope is that as the years progress in a year 03:02 where you don't have the amount of rain you have, that's the same color as this because the, the slope is going to affect it, obviously, 03:09 but it, there's bushels coming off of that and you're not spraying herbicide or fungicide or biologicals on dirt and losing the value of that. 03:18 You're actually putting it on your crop apartments. Okay. So let's talk about time in corn. Okay. Time in corn is, 03:24 I've plant the whole field at the same time. Okay. We don't have to come back. This historically where you see yellow, if we got 03:31 to come back, we would plant this corn the 1st of April. Okay. That corn will be planted, hopefully the 1st of May. 03:38 We would have to piece it back in. There's no way we would ever get this planted in April. If we did get it planted, I'd come back 1st of May anyway, 03:43 because we'd probably replant it because it's too wet. It's too wet. Okay. You know where it'll drowned out. Okay. What's the next one? Consistency. Consistency. Consistency. 03:50 Consistency is corn and wheat. Okay. Because we hadn't had just store normal beans on this yet. Mm-Hmm. We've double cropped. Mm-Hmm. 03:57 So corn and wheat both are consistency. One consistency again is planting the next consistency is the, you can see it on the yield map, the whole yield map. 04:05 And we don't, we don't wanna get into a deal where, oh, it's green or o it's red or os yellow. Let's look at the numbers. The whole yield map is consistent 04:11 within the yield of potential of the ground. Mm-Hmm. How about that? Mm-Hmm. You know, oh, it's all 290 bushel corn. No. Mm-Hmm. 04:18 Some ground is not 290 bushel ground. Right. And we're having to remember this just got tiled. The biology life where it wasn't tiled sucked, 04:27 it was terrible, it was clogged water. We're having to reamp that and rebuild that. So that's the process that is going on right now 04:33 with this ground and in that plant. Mm-Hmm. So what's the next question? ROI on your inputs? ROI on my inputs, 04:38 that's the best one I like because that makes you pockets fat that buys race car parts. We're gonna get race car sponsors, you know, so anyway, um, 04:47 ROI on inputs, so we start out planting wheat, right? This is dry in October when I plant my wheat, first week of de November, when I plant my wheat, this is dry. 04:54 We're planting from one end to the other. Everything looks good. Wheat comes up, we're still great. What happens in December? Rains, we lose that wheat. 05:03 It's around $45 an acre for seed only. We're around 68 to $72 acre for fertility. So when you say you lose that wheat, you're talking about 05:12 where we're currently probably in that, that yellow corn, if you will, where you normally would, 05:16 it would be brown. No wheat. No wheat. No wheat. So we would have a five to eight acre, possibly 10 acres zone according to the winter. 05:25 Mm-Hmm. That would have no wheat in it. Well, I fertilize it at 70, $75 according to the year I planted it. 05:31 $45. And I possibly could have got one spraying on it, a herbicide spraying before it drowned it out. We're talking about 110 05:38 or $20 that I put into that Seven, seven acres that had zero return. Okay. Okay. So that's the numbers. 05:43 When you talk about the ROI, that's the numbers we lost. So the co consistency, ROI of the farm, 05:48 when you say consistency was one Mm-Hmm. Is the consistent yield map and consistent plant dates. The consistent return on my investment.
Growers In This Video
See All GrowersChad Henderson
Madison, AL