LAKE ALMA, Sask. – A dry spring in south-central Saskatchewan this year, forced many farmers to start a search for new water supplies.
Yet there was no pasture pipeline plow available in the area.
So Wayne Hagen, who ranches near Lake Alma and operates Hagen Manufacturing out of his farm shop, decided to build one.
“This year was quite dry, guys’ dugouts were running low and they were needing to get extra water sources, so I felt there was a need for it. I thought I’d put one together and rent it out to local farmers,” said Hagen.
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The plow beam is three inches wide. He used three, one inch by eight inch pieces of flat iron laminated together. Most of the other material in the plow is three-quarter inch to one inch thick steel.
“The plow beam can go into the ground about two feet. The hose is fed behind the plow beam as you drive along in the slowest gear, like a slow walk,” said Hagen.
“There’s a big hose reel that will handle up to a one tonne spool. The plow can plow in up to two inch line, but the most common has been 1 1/2 inch line. On 1 1/2 inches, a big spool will handle 6,200 feet of hose.”
Hagen said if the pipeline is any smaller it creates too much friction loss and going larger than two inches nearly doubles the price of pipe. Costs range from 42 to 45 cents a foot for the 1 1/2 inch hose.
“It’s a high density hose, so it handles 100 psi and it can handle some freezing. There’s special fittings for that hose. You can melt the ends together like butt welding, or else there’s compression fittings with various styles of couplers, ends and tees,” he said.
When digging two feet deep, especially on pasture, rocks can be an issue.
“If there’s moisture in the ground, the rocks will pop out the side. But if you do hit a big rock, you have to lift and go over, or get a hoe in and dig it out. We try to watch for any rocks poking out and try to avoid them.”
Hagen said the operator’s judgment is important because the plow can’t back up. When a rock appears, the operator must stop and figure out whether to lift and slide over it. On hard ground the operator must decide how deep to go.
This summer, Hagen was renting the unit mainly to ranchers setting up watering systems for their cattle. Some were plowing from dugout to dugout to shift water around. Others wanted to pump from a farmyard to a remote pasture, or a waterhole from one pasture to another.
“Guys have been using it all through the summer, but the best time would probably be spring, when the ground is a little more mellow. This summer guys were plowing into dry ground on burnouts. That’s like plowing through pavement and going two feet deep,” he said.
“In one case, the two-wheel drive tractor was spinning so (the renter) hooked a 150 hp four-wheel drive on it and (the plow) held up.”
While Hagen has heard some plows fetch $300 a day and 10 cents a foot, he charges $200 for a day and the first half mile. Then it’s a nickel a foot after that, plus the cost of the hose.
For more information, contact Wayne Hagen at 306-447-4721 or whagen@sasktel.net.
