An Environmental Advocate with the Land Improvement Contractors of Ontario says the contour drainage test that's currently being conducted on the demonstration site behind the Huron County Health Unit is an amazing opportunity.
Peter Thompson explains they are comparing three types of drainage on sloped property. The first test area will be left un-tiled, the second will have conventional, pattern drainage, which is every thirty feet in a straight line and the third is contour drainage.
"We follow the contour of the land and the slope on the drain is much reduced, so we're at .1 per cent slope, and it gives us the opportunity then to put a control gate on every lateral and during the dry part of the summer, we can close the control gate and if the rain does come, it doesn't leave through the tile and now it's available for the crop."
Contour tile drainage test site, Huron County (photo by Bob Montgomery)
Thompson says there are environmental wins, like potentially less nitrogen loss. Tile drainage does help reduce phosphorous loss but that can be addressed with other managements they're looking at, like strip tillage and property fertility management.
Thompson says, overall, the demonstration site is amazing in terms of what they're doing and what they can learn.
"You only get one crop a year and, in terms of monitoring the water, real problems occur with the major rainfall events or the major melts in the spring, so often times you only get two of three of those a year, and so it's gonna take a lot of years before we have really valuable data."
