Research Report Final Report

Research Report Final Report

Project No. 21615 Date: March 31, 2016 Portage la Prairie, MB Revised: June 1, 2016 Research Report Final Report Development of a Decision-Support Tool for Economic Considerations of On-Farm Surface Water Subsurface Drainage as a Water Management Strategy: Adaptive, Economic, and Environmental Considerations For: Manitoba Agriculture, Manitoba 21615 March 31, 2016 Portage la Prairie, MB Revised: June 1, 2016 Final Report Research Report Development of a Decision-Support Tool for Economic Considerations of On-Farm Surface Water Subsurface Drainage as a Water Management Strategy: Adaptive, Economic, and Environmental Considerations Avery Simundsson Project Leader Lorne Grieger, P.Eng. Project Manager, Agricultural R&D Harvey Chorney, P.Eng. Vice President, Manitoba Operations ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This project was funded by the Canada and Manitoba governments through Growing Forward 2, a federal-provincial-territorial initiative. The author of this report would like to thank Gary Sands and Thomas Scherer for their assistance and explanations of optimal subsurface drainage systems, as well as Precision Land Solutions, K & S Tiling, and Professor Sri Ranjan of the University of Manitoba, and several local producers for contributing their time to engage in interviews and discussions on tile drainage in Manitoba. Table of Contents Page 1. Executive Summary ........................................................................................................ 5 2. Introduction .................................................................................................................... 7 3. Project Objective ............................................................................................................ 9 4. Prairie Agriculture and Climate Change .........................................................................10 5. Importance of Drainage .................................................................................................12 5.1 Other Water Management Strategies ...................................................................14 6. Surface Drainage ..........................................................................................................15 7. Introduction to Subsurface Drainage .............................................................................17 7.1 Components of a Subsurface Drainage System ...................................................18 7.2 Control Structures ................................................................................................20 8. Subsurface Drainage as a Conservation Practice ..........................................................23 8.1 Nutrient Retention ................................................................................................23 8.2 Salinity Management ...........................................................................................27 8.3 Soil Structure .......................................................................................................30 8.4 A Large-Scale Water Management Strategy for Climate Change.........................30 9. Designing a Subsurface Drainage System ....................................................................33 9.1 Soil Permeability, Ksat ...........................................................................................34 9.2 Drainage Coefficient ............................................................................................39 9.3 Pipe Grade and Size ............................................................................................41 9.4 Outlet ...................................................................................................................44 9.5 Control Structures ................................................................................................48 9.6 Legality ................................................................................................................49 10. Sub-Surface Irrigation ....................................................................................................51 11. Economics of Tile Drainage ...........................................................................................53 11.1 Factors Affecting Cost ......................................................................................53 11.2 Self-Installation .................................................................................................57 11.3 Economic Response ........................................................................................59 12. Summary and Conclusions ............................................................................................62 14. References ....................................................................................................................64 Appendix A Additional Resources ......................................................................................... 69 Appendix B Glossary of Terms ............................................................................................... 72 Appendix C Conversions ........................................................................................................ 75 List of Tables Table 1: Estimated yield reduction for Manitoba crops as planting date is delayed (Manitoba Agriculture, 2015). ..............................................................................................................12 Table 2: Acreage drained by a main drain laid at a specified grade (Planning to Drain Your Land, 1998). .......................................................................................................................19 Table 3: Chemical characteristics of saline, sodic, and saline-sodic soils (Larry Cihacek, 2012) ..........................................................................................................................................30 Table 4: Recommended steps for planning a subsurface drainage system ...............................34 Table 5: Example of calculating rates of permeability (Ksat) (Planning an agricultural subsurface drainage system, 2016). .....................................................................................................38 Table 6: Suggested parallel drain lateral spacing and depths for different soils (Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering). ............................................................................40 Table 7: Potential acres drained by drain size, type, and grade for a drainage coefficient of ¼” (6 mm) per day (Planning an agricultural subsurface drainage system, 2016) ........................41 Table 8: Recommended minimum grades for various sizes of pipe (Sands, Subsurface (Tile) Drainage Design). ..............................................................................................................42 Table 9: The 24 hour volume and flow rate produced per acre for a design drainage coefficient (Scherer T. , 2015). ............................................................................................................46 Table 10: Pump motor size in horsepower required based on head and peak flow rate, assuming an efficiency of 30% (Scherer T. , 2015). ...........................................................46 Table 11: Cubic feet of storage for each drained acre based on drainage coefficients and maximum pump cycles (Scherer T. , 2015). .......................................................................47 Table 12: Length of lateral drainage pipe needed to drain one acre at a given drain spacing (Planning to Drain Your Land, 1998) ..................................................................................55 List of Figures Figure 1: Using a yield map to create a profit map in order to assess the economic return on tile drainage (Vellidis Research Group, 2016). .........................................................................13 Figure 2: Various drainage system layout alternatives (Robert Evans W. S., 1996). .................19 Figure 3: Typical Drainage Water Management Control Structure (United States Deparment of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service (USDA NRCS)). ...............................21 Figure 4: Elevation lines dictate drainage management zones, and therefore the necessary number of control structures (United States Deparment of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service (USDA NRCS)). ...............................................................................21 Figure 5: Water gate float-activated control valve (Cooley, 2011)..............................................22 Figure 6: Water samples taken from surface and tile drained fields (Kandel, 2016). .................24 Figure 7: Tile riser in the field, left (Morrison, 2012), and construction of a blind inlet, right (Smith, Delaying Drainage from Prairie Potholes Protects Water Quality, 2013). ...............26 Figure 8: Two alternative configurations to blind inlets that provide intensive drainage .............27 Figure 9: Results of a 10 year field study on the effects of tile drainage on salinity (Agvise Laboratories) ......................................................................................................................28 Figure 10: Two sites of the highest salinity samples saw a dramatic decrease in salinity after the installation of tile (Agvise Laboratories). .............................................................................29 Figure 11: Approximate permeability of general soil types (Manitoba Agriculture,

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