A coalition of the Huron County Soil and Crop Improvement Association, the Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority and Huron County has some funding from the Canadian Agricultural Partnership for a unique project.
It will be on the demonstration farm behind the Huron County Health Unit near Clinton.
Association spokesperson, Mel Luymes, says a number of other partners are involved and the project that will look at how control drainage works on sloped land.
“What we're doing for the very first time in Ontario, is trying to put it on a slope and you do that by running the laterals on contour, so it's at the ever slightest grade, so you don't blow up the tile when it hits the header, that's where we would put a control gate in and stop the water so we can control the water table, basically, in the soil, on a slope,” said Luymes. "“We're doing a side by side by side of pattern tile, like regular, conventional tile, beside a contour tile that controls, beside a no-tile zone. And we're collecting the water quality and quantity off of the surface and sub-surface of all those fields, so we'll have a very unique project that's never been attempted before.”
Luymes adds on top of the contour drainage, they're actually doing contoured terraces, so that's a surface where they can get the water way faster and safer, without causing erosion, than they could without them. So they're going to be demonstrating how that can work in a field as well, working with some contractors to put some terraces in.
A demonstration is being planned for June.
