With demand booming for agricultural drainage tile in southern Manitoba, a company that installs the tile is expanding its operations, but in a slightly different direction.
Precision Land Solutions of Winkler has founded a subsidiary, AccuPipe, which will manufacture high-density polyethylene pipe – also known as drainage tile.
“We’ve seen so much demand for our services in recent years that we’ve had difficulty obtaining supply of pipe,”
said Chris Unrau, chief executive officer of Precision Land Solutions. “We didn’t have much of a choice, we had to do something to keep our equipment running and help our clients meet their production goals.”
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Tile production has already started at AccuPipe’s manufacturing plant in Winkler. Precision Land Solutions will use the perforated pipe for its installations in Manitoba.
Manitoba growers have turned to drainage tile as a way to produce high yielding crops, despite the wet springs and summers in recent years. Most of the tile is being installed under valuable potato land in southern Manitoba, but farmers who grow oilseeds are also spending $700 to $800 per acre to bury drainage pipe under their land.
Stan Wiebe, who farms near MacGregor, Man., told The Western Producer last year that his yields, for all crops, have increased 15 to 20 per cent since he installed drainage tile. In wet years the yield difference can be substantial. For instance, in 2005 one of Wiebe’s tiled canola fields yielded more than 53 bushels per acre. A non-tiled canola field produced eight bu. per acre.
Besides draining excess water from the soil in wet years, drainage tile fosters root development in dry years, said Sid Vander Veen, drainage coordinator with Ontario’s agriculture ministry.
“Because that excess moisture (in the spring) has been drained out of the soil, the crop roots grow deeper and extend wider,” he said, which means the roots can vigourously dig down for water, if there is a dry period later in the growing season.
It’s estimated that contractors have installed more than 40,000 acres of drainage tile in Manitoba since the late 1990s.
AccuPipe employs a staff of 10 and Precision Land Solutions has 15 seasonal workers.
