Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Creating ditches, installing drain tiles, and grading.
These practices can all
be effective in improving drainage, provided you have a lower area to drain
the water into.
Simply creating drainage ditches through your orchard may help improve
soil drainage. Keep the ditches on more-or-less level ground to reduce prob-
lems with erosion. Install and cover culverts where equipment and people
need to cross over the ditches. Due to safety concerns, open ditches are best
not used in orchards where young children may be present.
Drain tiles or perforated pipe can be buried in the orchard to accumulate
excess soil water and carry it off site or to a storage pond. The great advant-
age tiles and perforated pipes have is that they are entirely underground, re-
quire little or no maintenance, and do not interfere with orchard operations
or movement of people and equipment. Be sure that the tiles and pipes are
surrounded with weed barrier fabric to allow water to enter the pipes but
prevent tree roots from entering into and clogging them.
Orchard sites can be graded to provide level or at least uniform sloping
planting areas. Grading can also be used to remove high spots and fill in low-
lying areas. Be especially cautious with grading, however, and ensure that
you do not reduce portions of your orchard to infertile subsoil by scraping
away all of the topsoil.
