Managing Challenging Soils
26 Dec 232 min 48 sec

Matt compares yield maps to see the impact that his tile drainage system has on different soil types as it relates to the productivity in challenging soil conditions.

00:00 So guys, we're here today looking at some of the a DS data, uh, from our tile project. We've actually installed our second tile project this year. 00:09 It's 40 acres, just drained tile on 20 foot centers with no lift station. Basically we've got a bare bones trial 00:15 that we're starting this year and we've got a Cadillac trial that, that you're looking at behind me. 00:20 This is in its second year of testing. So this is the second year yield data on this. And what is absolutely crazy, 00:28 what I'll notice more than anything. So this down here that you see green, this is a little less than 88 bushels. 00:33 This is a sharky clay field, little bit of sand up in this area. All this is the poor dirt down here. 00:40 So as you look at where the green is, the majority of the green is in the poor dirt. The majority of the yellow 00:47 and the tan is in the, in what we call our better dirt. So this is what a traditional map should look like with all your poor ground down here 00:55 and your good ground up here. So this was a few years back. This was a little over 50 bushel of soybeans. 01:00 It just shows you the difference of how we change this field. Now is that through the irrigation 01:05 or is that through the drain tile? I think it's through both. What we have seen through the subsurface irrigation is we can not over water 01:13 the highs, but we can get plenty of water to the lows. This is all subsurface coming under the ground. Traditionally you would have your better ground 01:21 with a green, your poor ground red tan. So we completely flipped the yield amount. You know, we're only on our second year 01:27 at least got another year. But there's definitely some changes going on. This was, like I said, 87 point something. 01:34 It was a little less than 88 bushel field record yield for this field. I've had this field for over 20 years 01:41 and record yield, this is standard yield, this is record yield. This was after this year. Last year was a good year. 01:49 We messed up on our irrigation timing this year. We knew that we had to have that, that tile full of water. We had to have the sole capacity at a certain level 01:57 before it got hot and dry. Did that on this year and we've had very good success. Is the irrigation helping here? No question. 02:04 When you're getting these greens here over a hundred bushel yields. So when you're getting these kind of yields on that type 02:09 of ground, in that situation, I'm super excited about that. I'm super excited about our regular drain tile field. 02:17 We're gonna actually have that side by side of some same type soil that's not drained, and then the fields in front of it are the same way. 02:24 So there'll be four different, basically four different fields there and for four different quadrants of that farm. 02:31 And we've got the drain tile on, on the worst of it. So what I think we're gonna end up seeing is that, again, worse soil end up out yielding some of the better soils. 02:40 This is pretty impressive and we're happy to continue with this research.

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