Ohio Wine and More

Underground drainage tile repair work

Yea I do talk and shoot a lot of videos but here and there I try and do some real work too. I guess we bloggers who actually get out in the real world and actually do something that contributes to our nations GDP are few and far between but here is one of the jobs that we need to get after in the “off season”.

Water is an essential element necessary for plant life. However too much is not good. All things need balance. When soils become saturated plants don’t do well. I had an animal science professor Dr. Kline, that once told us “Water is TOXIC, right up to here!” as he held his finger just above his nose.

Much is the same for plants so we put pipes or drainage tubes in the fields to remove excess water and improve plant health. It is one of the most expensive aspects of farming and requires maintance. In this case we have several plugged or broken field tiles in this particular part of the field and are just getting started trying to identify the locations and dig them up and repair the spots.

The tile can break, get crushed, or get things like tree roots growing inside that leads to low flow and more plugs so we begin the task of “hunt and peck” as we move about the field. Today I had Galen helping me on hand shovel and Burt running the trac hoe. Here are a few videos as we dig into the soil in search of the damaged tile.

This particular tile drains part of our rear vineyard, corn maze, part of an alfalfa field, and haunted corn maze. We were able to find and fix one of the problems but have more work to do in other sections of the field later this winter.