Drainage Scheme Shows Good Return

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31730, 13 July 1968, Page 8

Drainage Scheme Shows Good Return

Farm drainage is a topical subject at present with a lot of the province now having had more than 20 inches of rain so far this year in less than seven months. This week the Department of Agriculture held a field day to report on a drainage scheme launched five years ago on the property of Messrs H. Hamilton and R. A. Ball at Springston as a department demonstration farm project.

This could be described as a success story. In this period some $6OOO has been spent on drainage, and between the latest financial year and the base year farm income has increased by some 40 per cent and the final cash surplus by some 47 per cent. The object of the demonstration farm, Mr P. R. Barer, a farm advisory officer of the department said, was to show that drainage paid. When the project started five years ago wheat could not be grown at all on many paddocks and on others some loss could be expected as a result of winter rains.

Quoting comparative figures for production in the base year, 1962-63, and the latest season, Mr Barrer showed that output of wheat had risen from 1485 bushels to 5036 bushels and of white clover seed from 22001 b to 60801 b. Other items in the latest period included 1522 bushels of barley—(none grown in the base year)—9s3 bushels of grass seed (1760 bushels In the base year), no peas compared with 670 bushels in the base year, 735 lambs sold (814) and 58001 b of wool (70001 b Over the last three years, he said, wheat yields had been substantially higher with the average in the latest period being 68 bushels compared with 45 in 1962-63. In 1965-66 wheat sown on a paddock that needed another tile line had dropped in yield to 45 bushels when the average over the farm was more than 70 bushels. This was an indication of what happened without drainage.

At the same time the yield of white clover in the latest period was 3201 b of seed to the acre compared with 1001 b in 1962-63, and 1601 b in 1963-64. In 1966-67 the yield had also been more than 300 lb.

Stock carrying capacity on the available grass had risen from 4.4 ewe equivalents in the base year to 5.1 in the winter, from 4.7 to 6 in the spring and from 7.9 to 10 in the summer. Some white clover was sown under wheat and because there was at least 20 acres of white clover stubble there was only a small increase in the winter grazing.

Because they believed that before the project started this farm was being fanned at maximam efficiency in the circumstances then prevailing, Mr Barrer said they attributed all of the increase in production to drainage. Before the present scheme of tile and mole drainage, Mr Ball said, if there were prolonged heavy falls of rain poor utilisation of grass due to poaching occurred and yields of grain crops were reduced through waterlogging. It had been realised that the

main limiting factor to increased production was the need for still more drainage—at this stage the property was reasonably well served by open drains combined with contoured water furrows. “The rainfall of 23.45 in to date this year that we have had to cope with has been a good test and we are very pleased with the results from the land which we have so far tiled and moled successfully,” he said.

“Tiles have been used in the main to take water away from the mole drains. The moles have been pulled with the greatest fall of the land and they play the most im-

portant part in the scheme. The success of the moles depends on soil type and the condition of the subsoil they are pulled through. I have found it is best to pull moles through ground in grass as the soil is drying out in the spring, and as soil conditions vary as the seasons they follow, mole drains pulled in one season may be more efficient than those pulled in the following season. “Mole draining a paddock with the drains pulled 6ft apart at about an acre an hour is not very time consuming, so it is not very much trouble to renew any mole drains which have broken down. “Most of the tiles have been laid in the early autumn, this being the time of the year which is most convenient considering other seasonal work,” said Mr Ball. A drainage officer of the department, Mr J. F. Scott,

said that the mole drains were the vital part of the scheme. Where paddocks had pipes in them there had been a marked improvement when the moles had been put in. The total eoat of the scheme on 165 acres there were some 30 acres still to do—was jnst in excess of $6OOO. This represented $36 or $37 an acre.

The tiles were the expensive part of the scheme and on average two chains and a half of tiles had been used to the acre. This had varied with soils and conditions and in one paddock three chains and a half had been used to the acre and the cost here had been $5O to $52. In another paddock, he said, the cost had been only $l6 to $2O. Some plastic tubes had also been used as well as clay tiles and on the basis of checks on discharge these latter had worked as efficiently as the clay tiles. Mr Ball noted that they were much easier and quicker to lay. Mr Scott said that Mr Ball was in the habit of using a strip of polythene film over the pipes, virtually sealing the top of the pipes off so that there was less chance of silt getting into them. He then used straw on top. A lot of farmers, however, used shingle and it was more expensive—about $4 a chain —but it was easier when it came to remoling. On the all-important financial side of the operation Mr H. Tocker of the economic section of the department, showed that takings from crops in the most recent season had been $12,137, including $7302 from 74 acres of wheat yielding 68 bushels, $l4OO from 19 acres of barley yielding 80 bushels, $1429 from 21 acres of grass yielding 45 bushels, and $2006 from 19 acres of white clover yielding 3201 b to the acre. As at last month the property was also carrying 660 ewes and 10 rams, and in the most recent season income also included $3438 from lamb sales, $lBB from sheep sales, and $llB2 from wool, bringing total income to $16,945, or some $4816, or more than 40 per cent, better than in 196263, with current prices being used for that period also. In this period income from wheat had trebled, Mr Tocker noted. After deducting expenditure, Mr Tocker showed that the surplus available for living expenses, taxation and capital items in the most recent season was $11,950, which was $3812, or 47 per cent, better than in 1962-63. “I think that justifies the expenditure that has gone in on drainage," Mr Tocker commented.

Going still further and assuming a quarter and a half of the purchase price of the property at $70,000 had been financed by a 30-year table mortgage with interest at 5j per cent and that in each case a 20-year table development loan of $3OOO had been raised on second mortgage at 6 per cent, Mr Tocker showed that where a quarter of the purchase price had been loaned the net profit in 1967-68 would have been $9239 and with half the purchase price loaned $8351 —a bigger return than at the outset. There was some discussion about the acreage in wheat on the property, and Mr Barrer said he felt when the further 30 acres was drained that 100 acres could be sown to wheat.