Drainage Tile......what are they?

Then concrete tiles (still used for larger main lines esp) and a great big wheel with little cups on it for digging trench.

Then the chain trenchers came, are popular for commercial services. With plastic tile.

Now for pattern tilng they use tile plows, just a great big 3pt implement on the back of a 4wd tractor, works like a sub soiler point but 6" wide & installs 4 or 6" plastic tile like they install underground wire.

Flat ground? What is that????? ???

You try to put tile in an average of 3' deep. You need to be 24 inches deep or you will pull it up with a ripper, etc. But it costs a lot to go more that 4 feet deep, so you try to plan out the tile patter to be in that 3 foot range.

It drains into the ditches or a natural lake or stream, and the tile gentley climbs uphill from there, mostly you follow the low spots in the field.

Pattern tiling is for more flat fields (whatever they are?) where they run tile every30 to 100 feet apart (depending on the type of soil, how fast the water drains trough it) to a bigger header tile on one end of the field, which drains to the ditch eventually.

If you have a real low field it is likely real good ground, so it may pay to tile it & put in a lift station - this is a pump that lifts the water up, as your field is about the same level as the water in the ditch, so you can't get the water to run away. You run the tile under the field, drains to the pump, and the pump lifts the water to the surface, where it can then run over to the ditch again.

It keeps puddles of water from drowing your crops/ makes low spots farmable so you can plant & harvest in straight lines/ makes a healthier root system of your crops because they do not grow into saturated soils.

I have several miles of tile under my small farm.

Now, my question - what is completely flat ground?

--->Paul

I'm sure some of the sites others advised you to visit will explain this better than I.

On underground field drainage the earliest I've seen were rock drains, a trench was dug about 3' deep and about 18" of field rock placed in bottom and covered with soil. I've seen box drains built from lumber with drilled holes. Another is round logs about 4" to 6" in diameter with a hole drilled the length of them, water entered at the joints much like the clay tile. Of course the clay tile and the modern plastic being used most everywhere today. Don't see wood or even clay tile being used much any more.

I dug up on my farm once an old water line made from wood. They drilled a 2" hole the entire 10' length of a 6" log, tapered ends as cones and points, and hammered them together. This system was piped almost 800' to a resovoir up hill from farm buildings. I understand the family had graviety running water and bathroom 50 years before electricity. I know of another system using same type of wood pipe and pumping water to resovoir on a hill to give steady graviety water supply.

Here are some pictures of pulling in plastic tile in Northeast Iowa. These tile were put in about 3 1/2 to 4 feet deep. We are on rolling prairie and everything is ran down to a natural waterway or creek and drains into that. Out in central Iowa where everything is flat, they built drainage ditches and have the tile dump into them.

Wil

If you want, you can email me with more questions.

Wil

That is just regular 6 inch tile that is white, not sand tile. We thought it was sand tile when we first saw it also but it was just like the black tile. No sand on the farm we tiled out, just good black soil with yellow clay about 2 feet down.

Wil

The tile is laid so that one end drains into a creek or ditch.
The tile my Dad lays is made out of corrugated ( the corrugations make stronger and easier to bend) black plastic. It comes in various sizes and lengths and perforated and non perforated. My Dad has a big 6-wheel machine with a 7'dia. digging wheel mounted on the back to dig the trench. The digging wheel can be adjusted up & down for depth of cut via cables and hyd. cylinders. The tile comes in 100' to 250' coils that are unroled alongside the trench and carefully layed in the trench by hand. Enough dirt to cover the tile is pushed in by hand, the reason being to protect the tile from being crushed when a backhoe, or dozer pushes the rest of the dirt in all at once.

The tile is used to drain wetspots in fields and for tile terracing. Tile terracing is where a tile line is laid straight up a hill, with a perforated vertical tube comming up out of the ground where a terrace will be build. A terrace is then built around the hill following the contour to catch the runoff water and channel it around the hill to the vertical perforated "riser" where it then runs down into the tile and on down the hill to end up in a creek or river. A hill may have 3 to 5 terraces spaced about 50 to 75 yards apart up it's sides. The steeper the hill, the closer the terraces.

This tile terracing system is superior to the old system of terraces and grass-covered waterways. Waterways can't be farmed and must be properly maintained to prevent them from eroding.

If you need more detailed answers, I can ask my Dad if it would be alright if you gave him a call to discuss it.