Ron..NE ILL..10/48 - 1/4/2025 06:14

Sorry that the "too flat" got to be the main point. I meant that having a good outlet that's lower than the field you're trying to drain is a problem. What would you call the situation when the bottom of the ditch you plan on draining in to is the same level as what will be the bottom of tile with 16" cover on it?

I can assure you we're no stranger to tile here, both clay & plastic. We've got 3 pretty good contractors we deal with. I will assure you it's not as easy as saying, "yeah..let's tile this field...". That IS the easy part...here.

We have some ditches. 90% of them are our responsibility to maintain. You can clean your own, but the next guy downstream might say, "it's good enough...not interested". So you have a couple miles of a clean (trees removed & bottom dipped occasionally) followed by a couple miles of a now meandering, silted, tree laden ditch that is downstream. There are a few drainage districts here, but they seem underfunded and under managed. I don't blame the farmers that end up serving on the district boards. Some of the groups have declined to only a few board members following attrition.

The same goes with mains. You have a 12" running through your field going to an outlet somewhere about 1.5 miles away. It's probably 60+ yrs old. Neighbor upstream pattern tiles a field and hooks to the main that starts adjacent to his field. Now it's really overloaded. Then what? The main through your farm is still100% your responsibility regardless.

We farm in one district that used to keep a fairly large ditch clean. The last time I remember seeing anyone cleaning was about 10 yrs ago. Now we have to take care of our own section of that ditch, even though the district tax continues.

Then we have Interstate 57. That messed up drainage forever. Try getting a tile run under an interstate. There isn't enough money...here anyway.