ARBORG, Man. — On July 19 nearly 100 millimetres of rain fell on the town of Arborg, in Manitoba’s Interlake region. A week later, large ponds of water were visible in fields, and ditches were almost full to the brim.
But at the Prairies East Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (PESAI) site, three kilometres west of Arborg, parts of the research farm were dry. It was possible to walk into a crop or stand next to a test plot without getting muddy shoes.
That’s because 30 acres at the research centre have tile drainage, installed in 2015.
Read Also
Canada’s plant hardiness zones receive update
The latest update to Canada’s plant hardiness zones and plant hardiness maps was released this summer.
“What we have (growing) on the tiles is looking good. Whatever we have on the non-tile, on the hill, that’s looking OK. But whatever we have in the low spots (without tile), that (crop) has been lost,” said Nirmal Hari, an applied research specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, who works at the PESAI site.
On June 26, Hari led a field tour of the experimental farm, including a presentation about PESAI research on tile drainage.
The tour got off to a rocky start, or a muddy start. About 60 visitors to PESAI hopped on a trailer, but the tractor pulling the trailer started spinning. Only 90 seconds into the tour, the tractor was stuck in the mud.
Fifteen minutes later, another tractor yanked it out and the tour continued.
During his speech, Hari explained that University of Manitoba scientists have been studying tile drainage vs. no tile for three years at the site on strips of canola, wheat and soybeans.
Tile drainage comprises perforated, plastic pipes that are installed under the surface. Excess water in the soil collects in the pipes and drains off the land.
At the PESAI site, there are three different tile spacings — 15 feet, 30 feet and 45 feet — and control strips with no tile.
However, the study was done in 2019, 2020 and 2021, three years with exceptionally dry growing seasons.
“If you talk to me about the yield for the last three years… for all the crops, wheat, canola and soybeans, most of the times there was no difference (between tile and no tile),” Hari said.
“That’s expected because we were super dry.”
So, the PESAI directors extended the trial into 2022.
Since May 1 about 360 mm of precipitation have fallen on Arborg, twice the normal amount for the period. The difference between PESAI land with tile drainage and no tile has been easy to spot this spring and summer.
“This canola is so good…. This is much better than the non-tiled land,” Hari said, standing next to a strip of canola with drainage pipes every 15 feet. “On the non-tiled land, we have some low spots. We got some rain and the water is standing there for a few days. Then the crop does nothing.”
There is also a noticeable difference in nutrient uptake between the wheat grown on drainage tile versus no-tile wheat at PESAI.
“I took a few pictures a few weeks ago,” Hari said. “The wheat on the tiles were looking more uniform and (green). The wheat on the non-tile, because we got three inches of rain, it was looking pale.”
Like much of the eastern Prairies, fields around Arborg were seeded later than usual this year because of the cold and snowy spring.
Dozens of fields near Arborg weren’t planted because it remained too wet to broadcast canola seed on the surface. Other fields are extremely patchy. The low spots have zero plants, but in higher areas the crops look better.
At the PESAI site, the researchers were able to broadcast or re-seed canola on the portions of land with drainage tile.
“We were able to seed canola on this strip and harrow it down,” Hari said, pointing toward the crop, which was nearing the end of the bloom period. “We were not able to establish the re-seeded (canola) on the non-tile crop the way we have on the tiled land.”
That difference, getting a crop established versus not seeding a crop in wet years, could be the major advantage of tile drainage.
Garnet Peters, president and chief executive officer of the PLS Group of Companies, a business near Morden, Man. that installs tile drainage, said the most common question is connected to yield — basically, how much will tile improve yields?
That may be the wrong question.
Tile can have a major impact on crop production, but not every year.
“Our potato guys will say, it was the difference between a crop and no crop,” Peters said.
“It’s not a spreadsheet thing, where you can say OK, I’m going to get 10 percent yield increase for the next 10 years.”
Still, producers focus on yield and the farmer-directors of PESAI will be interested in the performance of wheat, canola and soybeans on the tiled land vs. no tiles at the Arborg site.
“I’m expecting to see yield differences, especially in the wheat and canola,” Hari said. “Soybeans are more resilient to the moisture.”
PESAI expects to publish its findings for the 2022 growing season later this year.
