Utilizing Drainage Tile for Irrigation: A Field Test with Water Sensors
15 Jul 242m 31s

Matt and Layne are testing the feasibility of using their drainage tile system as an irrigation source. They install water sensors at depths of 6, 12, and 18 inches in their test field to monitor if irrigation water is effectively moving back up through the soil.

00:00 So Lane, what are we doing? Oh, we are putting water sensors out for our test field with a DS trying 00:07 to decide if our irrigation is pushing back up into the soil Or not. What you think Snow? 00:13 I think it's not. You think it's not? Or you think it is? I think it's Not pushing back up into the cell. 00:18 Charles, you water it. It's definitely pushing up These beans would look terrible. There you go. I so agree. 00:48 So these are going in at what depth? Uh, they're going at six, 12 and 18. So right now we're taking each sensor 01:04 and we're putting our depths down to six inches, 12 inches, 18 inches. Trying to see how far we're driving soil up or water up. 01:12 'cause uh, we know that our tile lines are somewhere around 30 inches. Give or take. I think. I don't know the exact math. 01:19 And we know we're gonna be able to push water halfway up just, just through percolation, 01:24 hoping we can try to get it all the way up to the top. So what I'm doing, this is kind of my side, getting to the water centers as I'm digging what I call test holes 01:57 with this, this hand auger. That way I can see if the water level comes up in these holes just by visually getting down there. 02:04 That's gonna be about a two foot hole. And we're still not looking at actual water, but we are looking at mud. 02:10 This is about two foot deep and you can see what our soils, our sharky clay soils look like. 02:18 Now, that's come out of an auger, but that's kind of what our soil looks like. You know, down, say get past a foot, foot and a half deep. 02:25 So it's kinda like Play-Doh.

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