15’ & 30’ Drainage Tile - Water Management Study

Managing & Recycling Water on a Wet Farm

When the PTI Farm was acquired in 2017, we quickly learned that our new research site was a “wet farm.” There was very little field tile to drain our soils to prevent yield losses, so our focus turned to adding and installing field tiles to drain the excess water from our fields. In the process, we created our own water reservoir and began to dream of other ways we could utilize the costly drainage tile.

Due to this reservoir, we had millions of gallons of water we could use as irrigation from field drainage and rain collection. We put it to the test to see if drainage tile could be used for more than just drainage, and have an added benefit on potential yield during dry and drought months.

If you have a wet farm, drainage tile can improve your field and give you ideal conditions to help increase yield. Drying out your soil not only allows you to plant sooner, but also improves harvesting conditions, increases land value, and produces more consistent yields. However, the price tag on field tiles can often cause growers to hesitate on installation.

By being able to utilize drainage tile for both drainage and irrigation, we estimate that 15’ tile systems would pay for themselves after 14.2 crop seasons and 30’ tile systems in twelve years. In 2025, the 15’ pattern tile offered the greatest yield advantage of 12.6 Bu/A, which equates to additional gross farm revenue of $52.04/A.

Multi-year irrigation back-feeding data shows $35.80/A in 15’ tile pattern tile and $22.30/A in 30’ tile patterns. Although these are fairly small yield gains, when you consider the impact on the expected payback period, they look promising! When we look at the backfeeding gains with the 2025 corn prices, it could lower payback to 9.9 years in 15’ tile and 9.1 years in 30’ tile patterns.

We still have a lot of testing to do and we look forward to continuing this water management study in the years to come.

Drainage Tile & Water Management Study Results

_{Note: The minimal yield and economic returns in both 2024 and 2025 should be attributed to the lack of rainfall. Due to very dry conditions, irrigation water in the field tile needed to be redirected to drip-tape. Tile sub-surface irrigation was just too deep at 36”, thus finding it very difficult for corn to get water at those depths. In a normal rainfall growing season, back-feeding tends to work much easier.}

In-Depth Study Videos

Study Details 

Study data collected 2019-2025 at the PTI Farm in Pontiac, IL.