1. Why Water Management?

2. 9 Billion by 2050

3. The implications are enormous
A growing population…
Seeking to increase their protein intake…
From a finite land resource…
With a limited water supply…

5. Source: Syngenta

7. FARMLAND VALUES cf. GROSS INCOME cf. DEBT
Source: Marcus Mitchell, Bonnefield Canada

8. “Chris, we can’t buy any more land near our farm. We
need to do more with the land base we have”
“Chris, we have too much at risk. We can’t afford to lose
any crop.”
“Chris, my son wants to join the farm, and we can’t
support two (or more) families on our land base. We
need to do more with what we have”
“Chris, it just makes sense to improve our existing land
base, we already have the inputs and machinery to grow
crops on that land”

9. So?
Why Water Management?

10. 20 year study in Ohio, Toledo Silty Clay

12. Yield increase on tiled land:
20 yr study of Ontario crop insurance data
Crop
Yield Increase
Corn
29%
Soybeans
26%
Wheat
38%
Dry Beans
21%
Canola
13%

13. Surface or Sub-Surface?
It’s Complicated.

14. Surface or Sub-Surface?

15. Surface or Sub-Surface?
There’s no easy answer. Both are needed in varying degrees.
Surface drainage:
-Water source is precipitation
-Time is critical
-Infiltration rate is low
-Topography allows it
Sub-Surface drainage:
-Water source is precipitation and/or from below the surface
-Infiltration rate is higher, or ground water pressure is significant
-Salinity
-Crops, root sensitivity

16. Surface Drainage

17. Surface Drainage

Critical for quick removal of excess moisture



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Corn roots die after 48 hrs submerged
Topo mapping essential for reducing the amount
of soil volume to be moved, ensuring best fit
drain pattern
Caution to control erosion, keep slopes to a
minimum
Machine control absolutely necessary
Routine maintenance can be overlooked
Ditching vs. Land Leveling

18. Land Leveling
Primarily used in
flood irrigation, less
commonly used as a
drainage practice.
Most common drainage
application is in a rowcrop situation where
each row can
individually drain to
an outlet.

19. Land Leveling
• Every row has an outlet for water; slope is variable but positive in
one direction
• Cross ditches sometimes needed
• More soil moved = higher cost
• More disruptive: affects soil structure, compaction,
microbial/nutrient balance
• Topsoil stripping, subsoil leveling
• Applications are rows/ridges, low crops
• Fence rows/Blow ridges

22. Quarter with fence rows - traditionally farmed north/south

23. Ditching
•
•
•
•
•
•
Lowest cost water management technique
Quick to construct, quick response, quick return
Requires ongoing maintenance
Outlet issues
Erosion controls
Salinity pressure

25. Tile Drainage
• Consists network of perforated tubes spaced evenly
throughout a field to allow the removal of excess water in a
soil profile.
• Free water enters the pipe and can run to an outlet.

26. Tile Drainage
• Evidence shows that ancient Egyptians used hollow bones buried
in lines to drain the Nile floodplain
• Brought to NA by John Johnston; by the mid 1800’s he had laid
over 72 miles of clay tile (by hand)
• Johnston increased his wheat yields from 12 bu/ac to 60 bu/ac

27. How does tile drainage work?
• Gravitational water, the water that runs
through a soil, escapes into the tile and runs
to the outlet
• Capillary water, the only water that a
plant can use, is left in the soil
• ANY water that runs out of a tile system
is water that would otherwise displace
oxygen, effectively drowning the roots

29. How Tile Drainage Works
• Holes in a flower pot
• Sponge in a bucket:
– When lifted out of the bucket, the water that drips out is the water that
tile will remove from a soil
– After it stops dripping, the water you can squeeze out is the only water a
plant can use – anything more than that is drowning the root by displacing
oxygen

30. What about when it’s dry?

31. Benefits of Tile Drainage
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Earlier planting*
More timely field operations
Crop uniformity
Reduced risk
Improved yields
Eliminate or reduce salinity
Peace of mind
Tax advantages – 100% deductible in year of installation
Increases land value beyond installation cost

32. Basic Tile Drainage Design Concepts:
• Topography – determines layout
• Outlet – necessity that can determine feasibility
• Coefficient – how much water the system can remove in 24hr
period (influences main sizing, influenced by soils)
• Spacing – largest cost variable, strongly correlates to efficacy,
influenced by soils
• Pipe/Tile – perforated, narrow slot, filtered
• Utilities, irrigation, infrastructure

39. Salinity - a symptom of a water
problem

40. Tile Drainage
Environmental Benefits

41. Tile Drainage - Environmental
Benefits
• Reduced surface runoff
• Improved soil health
• Green Benefits

42. Tile Drainage - Environmental
Benefits
• Reduced surface runoff
– Tiled land acts as a buffer to rainfall, gives water time
to percolate into a soil profile and slowly be released
to streams (Van Vlack/Norton, Mason/Rost,
Skaggs/Broadhead, Irwin/Whiteley)
• Reduced peak flows in streams (Skaggs: 89%)
• Reduced soil erosion due to overland runoff -55%
(Baker/Johnson, Hill, Loudon, Belcher/Fogiel, Skaggs)
• Reduced movement of P (48%), K (22%), and pesticides
(50%) (Gaynor/Loudon, Muir, Bastien)

43. Tile Drainage - Environmental
Benefits
• Increased Crop Growth
– Coldwell: Corn 35%, Soybeans 32%, Wheat 47%
• Increased nutrient usage
• Increased soil organic matter, tilth
• Increased soil biological activity
– Van Vlack/Norton: Increased soil bacteria, better soil tilth,
deeper root systems, increased nutrient consumption
• Better Soil Structure
– Gardner et al.: Improved soil structure, better
trafficability, increased water storage capacity

44. Tile Drainage - Environmental
Benefits
• Green Benefits
– Decreased fossil fuel consumption (Madramootoo,
Wind)
– Decreased greenhouse gas production
• Less CO2 from fossil fuel burn
• Less denitrification

46. Founded 2006 by Chris & Charlotte Unrau
•Diploma in Agriculture from University of Manitoba
•10 year career in Farm Management – 1500 acre
table and chipping potato operation near Carman, MB
•Included project and water management; short stint in
fruit production
•Left the farm in 2006 to pursue Water Management
business

47. Brief history of
PLS:
Operations started in April 2007:
-One tile plow, 1500 acres/yr
-One employee
-One surface drainage unit
Current Operations:
-3 Tile Crews – 6000+ acres/yr
-2 Surface Drainage Units
-5+ Subcontractors working under PLS supervision
-2 Companies- PLS and AccuPipe
-30+ Employees

48. Our 3
Pillars:
Our
Technology
Our People
Our Expertise

49. Technology Partners

50. Our People

51. Our Expertise
The cumulative effect of our equipment, people, and
experience.
We’ve tiled clear across Canada once and half way back
home.
That’s 25 million feet of drainage tile installed!

66. www.plsinc.ca
Phone: 1-855-PLS-TILE
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