For those who do not believe wet is bad.

[Hopperbin]

Claiming natural runoff is not really correct. A proper drainage project should be put into place. If it costs 300 dollars per acre so be it.

[fjlip]

One heck of a computer model to calculate water entering Quill before settlement, WITH no constructed ditches. At SCDA convention one speaker suggested that with NO ditches and continued excess rainfall, all the basins would fill up and over flow down stream eventually to the lake. But what ever all the smaller basins held, would NEVER get to the lake, right? So any given amount of excess, a good portion would be all over the land. Today zip on the land, virtually 100% ends up in the lake. Man made drainage, I'll suggest, doubles the amount of inflow. Plus way faster flows down mowed clear ditches, from spring melt and large rains. The lake might have been bigger once, but with drainage it got this big sooner. Oh and there were THOUSANDS of beaver dams helping hold MORE on the land. Today we clear them all away.

[freewheat]

Something to think on too, is that once drained, that land becomes productive, and in theory should be dryer from the crops using the moisture during the growing season. I know if a person can get through the low areas, given normal precip., those areas improve and get dryer. So then they contribute far less downstream issues, because there is far less to run off in the first place. We need to realize that a slough full of water does not run off each spring. Lots soaks into the soil profile, thanks to the fact it is being cropped, and not just a pond of bare water.

[farming101]

Good point Freewheat.

Fjlip makes a good point too.

When water is drained into a body of water that is never empty (such as a lake) the water introduced to the lake is always there. It accumulates.

[foragefarmer]

Freewheat

How much production have you been getting out of those low spots lately?
Just wondering since you have livestock won't it be a better use of the low spots to seed it to a grass that would us the moisture to produce either hay or pasture. This would also help a saline issue as well. Is trying to crop it annually giving you any type of return on this land?



So then they contribute far less downstream issues, because there is far less to run off in the first place. We need to realize that a slough full of water does not run off each spring. Lots soaks into the soil profile, thanks to the fact it is being cropped, and not just a pond of bare water.

[freewheat]

I actually have fairly well naturally drained land. A half I rent is pretty potholey, but always is. You are correct about when it is a permanent slough, that there are better uses, esp. if you need to cut through a ten foot high hill to drain it out!

I do hay the permanent areas that are reachable in season. It is mostly reed canary grass.

The main losses of land I have had, have been due to inaccessibility of land because of the large waterbodies being so full that they extend out enough to cut off my access.

Also, the worst affected land for me, has been the nice, flatter sections of number one, heavy soil within fields as a whole, which for 100 years were by far the best producing areas. I am not planning on seeding down my best land due to a handful of freakish rainfall... The best producing land lately has been the higher, rolling, lighter land, which is typically the lowest producing. I do have plans for the permanent sloughs for fencing them in for the sheep. We are three years into the stock side of farming, and yes, we intend to make better use of all our land this way.

We do not have salinity issues here, except at the fringe of the lakeshores.

[fjlip]

It's the age old situation, water runs downhill. All is peachy if you are on the upstream end, not so great if you are downstream of thousands of acres of high dry land. Just as Quill on a smaller scale, I am stuck with 50 acres that dries by fall except due to beavers last summer. Prior to 1975, when 3000 acres were drained into it, we cropped and hayed it all. Only about 100 acres total drained into the low area for centuries.
It is natural drained, but ditching has expanded the area upstream 30 times, not unlike the Quill watershed. Upstream land owners farm corner to corner today, my field is in 3 pieces, 50 acres of wet, salty, weedy crap. Someone gains by drainage but if water is unable to leave or flows poorly, others lose productive land. Therefore every ditch needs to be analyzed for consequences to others, before being allowed to continue. It's very complicated to be fair.

[Hopperbin]

Free a slough I thought will evaporate 24 inches of moisture. A crop will not use that much well maybe. But in all all land owners that have runoff should pay in

[Partners]

Drainage is like sports..There is always a winner and a loser..If your the winner you are smiling..The loser no one remembers..

[freewheat]

FJ I have been trapping and shooting beavers all spring, which have dammed and entire existing lake, elevating the water level by 4 or more feet, which cuts off access to 25 acres of my best farmland. The water also trickles slowly over the dams, and erodes and ruins other land. Don't have to deal with beavers in dry cycles. One more negative thing about wet cycles!

Dam beavers! Rain makes grain!

And Partners, you are correct. Sometimes the affected guy can be half a world away, but the water still goes downhill.