Tile drainage

Several years ago when I was discussing the farm situation with farmers in Manitoba, the point was made that Manitoba agriculture is much higher risk than Ontario agriculture and therefore needs bigger and better safety nets than Ontario. I began asking why is Manitoba agriculture a higher risk proposition than Ontario agriculture. One of the reasons, I found, was the half of Ontario agricultural land is tile drained, whereas very little of Manitoba's farmland is tile drained. Tile drainage improves crop yields and decreased the risk of crop failure. Over the years since then I have watched the difference between tile-drained and non tile drained fields in Manitoba. This year the differences were dramatic. The photos above, taken in July of this year, show a good crop of soybeans on the tile drained part of a field and very poor crop of soybeans on a part of the same field that was not tile drained. Interestingly, the part of the field that was tile drained had much worse drainage before it was tile drained.