Are water drainage solutions hard to come by?

[Farm X]

Hello there,

We're an export company located in the United States and are wanting to help provide farmers in the UK with water drainage solutions. I'm doing some information gathering and would love to get opinions on water drainage in the UK.

We currently carry Soil-Max plows that allow you to easily lay perf plastic drains using RTK GPS technology. They are also affordable compared to what is currently on the market.

A couple of questions...

Is there a need for this type of equipment in the UK?

How do farmers currently lay drain?

What's the biggest issue with water drainage in the UK?


I've attached some links below for your reference. If you have any questions at all, feel free to reply on here or email me at [email protected]

Thank you in advance for your interest and your help! We hope to be coming to LAMMA and CEREALS next year. We would love to see you all there.

Tile Plows | Terre Haute, IN — Soil-Max® / The Cutting Edge

Proprietary proportional valve to make crucial incremental adjustments to keep your plow on grade. Give us a call today!

soilmax.com

Farm Xport

www.distributionventure.com

 

[Against_the_grain]

Most arable farms in the UK (certainly East Anglia) have existing underlying drainage schemes. Drainage is a big part of arable farming in the UK. These were put in through the 60,s,70's and 80's predominantly. Most of these drains still work well and compared to what i have seen happens in the states we are well established at land drainage. However some of these drains which have been in use for 50odd years are feeling the effects of heavier machinery or lack of maintenance or just the process of time. Some farmers are putting new drainage schemes in place, most are using contractors (william moorfoot) others are doing it themselves using tools like AFT trenchers. Both ways are expensive but the most costly part of the exercise is the backfill stone.

 

[D14]

The U.K. either use a drainage contractor with self propelled drainage equipment or these are becoming very popular to do it in house.

Agricultural Drainage | Sheltons Drainage

Our agricultural drainage chain trencher, the CT150 can dig trenches of up to 1.5m deep and can even cut a drainage trench into standing water! It is a tractor mounted trencher so farmers can carry out drainage in house at a suitable time. It's an affordable and easy way to sort out farm...

sheltonsdrainage.com

Your machine needs a lot of hp to drag it. To hit the mass market you’ll need something that can be pulled by a 200hp sized tractor.

 

[snipe]

Biggest issue with drainage in the uk is cost of stone for back filling over the pipe.

 

[farmerfred86]

As above, the stone backfill is the real problem/cost.

Post subsidy drainage will be an issue especially given the age of many drainage schemes and new technology is a good thing.

 

[nxy]

These type of machines have never caught on in the UK for various reasons.

The main reasons being:
Most drains are laid with gravel back fill
Tracked drainage machines can work for most of the year in the UK climate where as tractors on tyres pulling this type of machine are restricted to July to Oct at best.
The main crops grown in areas where drainage is necessary are autumn sown so the window for this work is very short and is a very busy time of year on theses farms.
Much of the arable land in the UK was drained 40 plus years ago and much of the drainage work taking place is replacing or renewing old systems
The ready availability of old cheap construction equipment like diggers which can work year round.

Having said all of that I am an english farmer in France and have used a Rabaud tractor mounted drainage machine to drain most of my farm.

 

[Spencer]

Nobody has 800hp available on farm to pull a tile plough of that size. As had been said, if you had a machine capable of working behind 200hp in good conditions that came equipped with laser and grade controls in a plug and play package for 20k GBP you’d be on to a winner. I’d have one!

What’s your definition of affordable?

 

[nxy]

This is the machine I use with an old 7250 magnum so 260 Hp

https://www.rabaud.com/en/products/sub-soilers/draining-sub-soiler-.html

Not as clever but does the job. Only difficulty is getting a constant fall on the pipe. I never lay the pipe first time or even second time through only once I have pulled through blind at full depth

 

[Farm X]

Nobody has 800hp available on farm to pull a tile plough of that size. As had been said, if you had a machine capable of working behind 200hp in good conditions that came equipped with laser and grade controls in a plug and play package for 20k GBP you’d be on to a winner. I’d have one!

What’s your definition of affordable?

I would definitely agree that is affordable. The plow I shared above doesn't sound like the best fit for the UK market.

Soil-Max provides two smaller plows: ZD1200 and ZD1600, which only need a 150HP tractor to pull it. Both plows come equipped with a proportional valve to help with grade control, a closed center, and a GPS arm.

We sell the Ag Leader Technology which makes it extremely easy to do it right and install the pipe correctly with just the right amount of grade. BUT this is where it can get expensive if you don't already have the technology. You can certainly equip it with a laser if you'd like and that would eliminate the cost of the other technology.

I've attached a video of the ZD1600 equipped with an AggBox and tile reel. With the ZD1200, there's no need for a tile reel and it's our most affordable option no doubt. I've also attached a video and info on our Ag Leader Technology.

If you or anyone would like to get on a video call to help answer any more questions, I'd be more than happy. Feel free to email me at [email protected]. Otherwise, I'm happy to continue our conversations on here as well.

Thanks for everyone's honest response, it's very much appreciated! Keep them coming!

General 2 — Farm Xport

www.distributionventure.com

 

[Spencer]

So how much does a ZD1600 retail for in the US?

 

[Wisconsonian]

For context, in the USA, 4' corrugated plastic drain "tile" costs around $.40/foot, and is very rarely installed with rock/gravel. Mostly the distances are too vast, the plastic so cheap, and the land so cheap that the tile is installed bare.

The tile plow is a small part of the cost of a drainage installation, so not really significant whether it's $20k or whatever when it lays $100,000 worth of tile.

The USA probably has a relatively similar proportion of drainage installed 100-150 years ago, and some prehistoric drainage done by Native Americans

 

[Farm X]

So how much does a ZD1600 retail for in the US?

Pricing ranges from $25,000-$30,000 USD for the ZD1600 plow, depending on what size of piping you'll need, size of boot, other equipment needed, etc.
That doesn't include shipping or technology.

Out of all the plows, the ZD1200 is the most affordable plow. At the end of the day though, it all just depends on how much tiling you need to do and how big of drainage pipe you're laying.

 

[Spencer]

Pricing ranges from $25,000-$30,000 USD for the ZD1600 plow, depending on what size of piping you'll need, size of boot, other equipment needed, etc.
That doesn't include shipping or technology.

Out of all the plows, the ZD1200 is the most affordable plow. At the end of the day though, it all just depends on how much tiling you need to do and how big of drainage pipe you're laying.

Thank you for actually putting a price up.

I think in general for large pipes and detailed drainage schemes in the UK most farms will/would use dedicated land drainage contractors with years of experience. Having done quite a bit of full field drainage over the last decade I would definitely recommend someone with experience!

The ploughs your selling though would have a place for small jobs however, similar to the aft trenchers. And at 25k USD that would work with a laser, would be quite tempting..

Just my 2p worth...

 

[Fast Farmer]

A lot of ground in UK is already drained with very good systems, some systems dating back 150+ years and still working, the rest of the ground in the uk may not need draining for different reasons altitude, soil depth, farming style, maintenance is more a sustainable area of drainage our self propelled trencher has been sat for 10 years with no work but we are always busy with 200 rods and a digger

 

[goodevans]

Would it be cheaper to pull 2 runs of pipe at half the distance rather than 1 with gravel if you had such an easy way to pull it in,the best drains hear are the stone ones, which were put in down the slope as opposed to diagonally across it as is the favoured method now,every 7 yards

 

[Fast Farmer]

Biggest issue with drainage in the uk is cost of stone for back filling over the pipe.

Based on our experience stone is not always needed it's just more work and pain in the arse, water will still find its way into the drain with or without stone and the trouble is stone does and will block just like a soakaway and you can't clean it once it's underground.

 

[Spencer]

 

[Spencer]

Shows better than the video you put up.. like it!

 

[Flat 10]

Our chain trenchers do at least neatly cut old unknown systems, this would ruin them and you’d never know?

 

[snipe]

Based on our experience stone is not always needed it's just more work and pain in the arse, water will still find its way into the drain with or without stone and the trouble is stone does and will block just like a soakaway and you can't clean it once it's underground.

Not if you have 10 inch of heavy soil on top of 4 foot of orange/yellow clay. in the past we have dug down in a wet spot to put a drain in only to find one already there thats not blocked. the land was open cast in the 60s it won’t drain at all with out stone.