At Luft and Sons, we realize there is a larger need for information and knowledge about drainage than there is a need for contractors. Our goal is to FULLY educate you on how drainage works and how it will start working for you 24/7 to a true investment with exceptional and quick ROI. We have the technology to take your farms soil type, elevations, yield maps, etc. and overlay them all into a 3D grid and show you the optimal drainage of your farm.
You have the opportunity to set up an investment strategy on something you already own risk-free: Your land!
There is a reason why land investors are buying ground and tiling it right away. That’s because they know and understand the ROI value of tiling what they own. It’s exceptionally more cost effective to increase yield within the field you own in comparison to buying more land with additional labor expenditure to gain more income.
Not that buying land is bad, this is just working smarter. Make your money work smarter with less labor. Check out this ROI calculator.
Tile was originally installed to drain surface water and make the ground farmable. Our goal today is to greatly increase yields across your entire farm not just get your fields to “farmable conditions”.
You can never over-tile a farm but with our experienced Drainage Engineers, we can design the most profitable return on your investment.
Here are some top reasons to invest in tile on your entire farm:
- Warms up the Spring soil faster
- Allows you to work/plant field earlier
- Significantly improves root structure
- Greatly reduce drowned outs & replanting
- Reduces erosion
- Minimizes field compaction
- Significantly higher yields in all weather conditions:
- In wet years, it helps to keep plants from drowning
- In dry years it enables the plants to develop a strong root structure during the long, dry summers.
- With heavy rain and saturation, it allows you to get back in the field 7-10 days ahead of the rest.
- A properly tiled farm might be the only thing that allows you to get your field planted on a wet spring.
Here a little better explanation of each of these major points:
Dirt is like a sponge… any excess water in that sponge is drowning the roots of the plants. I like to compare tile to flower pots. They put holes in flower pots for a reason.
Let’s put 5 flower pots on your porch. The first pot having no holes. The second only has 1 hole, the 3rd pot has 2 holes and so on…
Now every morning let’s give those plants a good 1 inch of rain. What’s going to happen to these plants?
The first one will drown. The second will live but produce little to no yield. By the 5th pot, the plant will have outdone the rest greatly.
Tile is doing the same thing!
Ground Temperature is another major factor to consider. Every spring inches/feet of snow melt in your fields and millions of gallons of 33-degree water soak into the ground.
Now let’s take those same flower pots give them all a good inch of rain and place them in the freezer overnight. Next day let’s set them outside in the sunlight watch the temperature change the pot with no holes has no way to let the cold water get away while the 5th pot is warming up already.
When you have your farm pattern-tiled, that cold water is sent straight to the creeks/rivers which allows the ground temperature to rise more quickly, thus allowing you to plant sooner.
Lowering the water table and raising ground temperature early are critical as plant roots develop in the first few stages of growth and will greatly affect the plant’s entire life development. A lower water table provides exceptional growing conditions to young plants allowing them to grow a far more extensive root structure. So now you’ll have a healthier plant when the summer gets hot and the ground dries up because the plant will have deep roots pulling moisture from far below the surface.
Replanting your farm from drown outs is due to heavy rain in a short period of time. Even with a decent outlet in the center of your low areas, it might not be enough to prevent drowning. When the ground has reached its saturation point, all the rainwater will flow over the ground to the lowest point in the field and down any inlet pipes, if available. Once the ground is fully saturated, even some of larger intakes will not remove the water fast enough and when the water is gone the ground around it is still oversaturated. This oversaturation disrupts the root system and often kills the plant. With a properly tiled farm, the ground will have 3 – 3.5 feet of non-saturated soil ready to soak up rain. If it continues to rain, then the inlet will start doing its job while the underlying tile around the lower spots will continue to take away the excess water at a high rate to save the plants from drowning.
Common misconceptions and excuses that I’ve heard time and time again:
- Well, it’s not that wet…
- It drys up eventually…
- I think a couple lines will do it…
- It just hasn’t been this wet before????
All of these are excuses from saving money on an essential investment.
Are you considering tiling your land? Consider the following:
Compare drainage tiling to putting herbicides or fertilizer on your field year after year…
How many people do you hear say, “Well I get decent yields I can afford to use a little less fertilizer this year… and those corn bores and root rooms… they die eventually so let’s skip the herbicides for this year…”
You DON’T hear it because people know it pays to fertilize and use herbicides every year.
The only difference between investing in herbicides and fertilizers versus drainage tiling:
Herbicide and fertilizer inputs you pay for EVERY year. Tile is a 1-time investment for LIFE. It cost more up front but it PAYS year after year.
Skimping on your tiling is no different than saying, “I’m fine with 150 bushels…” when you could be getting 20-30 more bushels a year.
With 75 years of experience and extensive yield monitoring of before-and-after pattern tile drainage, we can now prove tiling can return your investment in under 5 years.
Let’s be honest with ourselves. Is there anything else you know of that you can invest for a 15-20% return right now? Why buy another farm when you can improve 5 farms and gain a farm in yields for 1/2 the price?
Contact Luft and Sons today for your free consultation and land assessment!