Podcast Episode 142

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Minnesota’s Coolest Drainage Plots

Minnesota’s Coolest Drainage Plots

Episode 142 | 37 min

With Guests:

Dr. Lindsay Pease, Associate Professor and Extension Specialist in Nutrient and Water Management of University of Minnesota Crookston
Trey Allis, Application Engineer of Prinsco

In this episode, guest host Trey Allis chats with Dr. Lindsay Pease of the University of Minnesota Crookston. An Associate Professor and Extension Specialist in Nutrient and Water Management, Dr. Pease shares insights into her research on drainage, nutrient management, and soil health in northwestern Minnesota.

Tracing her roots in the western Lake Erie basin in Ohio to her current work in the Red River Valley, Dr. Pease reflects on the similarities and differences between these two flat glacial landscapes. She shares her experience of getting “deeper and deeper into drainage” and how this interest brought her to her position in Crookston, MN.

Since 2019, Dr. Pease has conducted a 60-acre field experiment, studying crop outcomes in alternating drained and undrained sections. Through extreme weather conditions, her team has gathered valuable information about how tile drainage impacts water quality and crop performance. She shares the outcomes of this research and talks about what she’s learned about tile drainage and its impacts to the health of soil, water, and crops.

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Given how far north I am, I do like to call these plots ‘Minnesota's coolest drainage plots’ — by annual average temperature, of course. But I think they're pretty cool, too.

— Dr. Lindsay Pease, Associate Professor and Extension Specialist in Nutrient and Water Management at the University of Minnesota Crookston

Guest Bios

Dr. Lindsay Pease

Dr. Lindsay Pease is an Associate Professor and Extension Specialist in Nutrient and Water Management. Her work focuses primarily on nitrogen and phosphorus management in row crop systems with an emphasis on nutrient loss in agricultural runoff. She is excited to work with Minnesota farmers to build resilient, sustainable agricultural production systems.

Trey Allis

Trey graduated from North Dakota State University with a degree in Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering. He joined the Prinsco team as an Application Engineer in 2017 and primarily focuses on Agricultural engineering. Growing up on a farm and in the Ag community, Allis has spent a lot of his career focusing on the Flexible Dual Wall product and the value it adds to the industry. He is passionate about education and bridging the gap between research and application.

Lindsay Pease (00:00):

So up there, we are pretty far outside of where a lot of the drainage research has happened in the past. And so that’s what a big focus of my work is there. We definitely did lose nitrogen that year, but it was a soybean year. And it wasn’t as much as I thought it would be, to be honest. We’re looking at what was volatilizing and the volatilization losses were greater than our tile drainage losses. When the lift stations were on and when they were off, you actually are getting water table control with a lift station.

Trey Allis (00:37):

Welcome to the Water Table. Trey Allis here, joined today with Lindsay Pease, the associate professor and extension specialist at University of Minnesota Crookston. So Lindsay, thanks for coming on.

Lindsay Pease (00:48):

Yeah. Thanks for having me. Yeah. And like you mentioned, I’m a faculty member at University of Minnesota and I work all the way up as far north as you can. Not quite as far north as you can, but almost, getting close at the Northwest Research and Outreach Center, which is in Crookston. And so up there, we are pretty far outside of where a lot of the drainage research has happened in the past. And so that’s what a big focus of my work is there. But then also, I’m also looking at aspects of nutrient management and soil health and how all of those things integrate into one system.

Trey Allis (01:23):

Yeah. Awesome. And want to dive into that a lot here. And I know you have a lot of good research and stuff that’s going to be coming out and some events and stuff there too. But want to talk a little bit about your background a little bit. So you’re not from Crookston originally, but where are you from and then talk about your path getting up to where you’re at now.

Lindsay Pease (01:40):

Yeah. So originally, yeah, not from Minnesota at all. This was not necessarily on my list of things that I thought I would end up in my life, but I’m super excited and happy that it worked out this way. But I grew up in Northwest Ohio in the Western Lake Erie Basin, which is another flat glacial lake bed. So there is at least a connection there. And yeah. When I went to college, I went off to Ohio State. I was an agricultural engineering student there. Actually, all my degrees are in agricultural engineering. And yeah. For my first summer job, I worked with Dr. Larry Brown, who was a drainage engineer there at Ohio State. And yeah. That summer I just learned a lot just about agriculture in general and got my first look at drainage research. I was like, well, this is cool and interesting.

(02:31):

At that time, they were focusing a lot on controlled drainage and looking at those impacts on yield. And I just thought this was such a cool way of managing your drainage. And so I got my first taste of this conservation drainage that summer. We drove all around Northwest Ohio to these different sites and I also got a chance to interact with the farmers a lot and really got to understand how important the drainage is as part of the operation and how it’s really needed. Which coming from the suburbs is not something that you ever think about.

Trey Allis (03:05):

Sure.

Lindsay Pease (03:05):

Of course, we all think about sump pumps and ditches full of water. Northwest Ohio certainly has its share of water, especially moving all times of the year. But yeah, didn’t think about how the farmers deal with that. So that really got me interested.

(03:21):

And then I got opportunities. I think Dr. Brown was the first one to suggest to me going to graduate school. I did my master’s and stayed on for my PhD and just getting deeper and deeper into drainage. And then so when the opportunity came up, there was a faculty position open, the one I currently have at University of Minnesota. I went up and I toured. It was like below zero, middle of February, of course. But there was something about that landscape, that flat glacial landscape that I was like, “Well, this looks familiar.” And it’s been great. This has been all the different challenges of farming in Northwest Minnesota and the complex rotations, way more complicated than any other place in I think the whole country. But I think that it’s been an exciting place to work.

Trey Allis (03:21):

Yeah. And when did you start up there?

Lindsay Pease (04:10):

Yeah. So I started in 2018, so the summer of 2018. So yeah. It’s been about seven years. Yeah.

Trey Allis (04:15):

Sure. Yeah. I’m sure time flies with a lot of that stuff too. You mentioned some of the things with the Red River Valley. I want to talk about some of the other uniquenesses that’s going on there, not just that the water goes north, but like you said, flat and different rotations. Talk through some of that stuff.

Lindsay Pease (04:30):

Yeah. So I think the big thing is the diversity of the crop rotations that we still have in Northwest Minnesota. Obviously, not everybody grows sugar beets, but if you do grow sugar beets, that is a major part of your rotation and taking care of those beets to produce sugar. So that is one aspect that’s completely different. I would also say lots of people having spring wheat in the rotations still. A lot of other parts of the country, the wheat has gone out of rotations. And so thinking about these systems. I think from a nutrient management standpoint, those two crops in particular are really interesting because you are trying to target the nitrogen rates pretty bang on to what they need, which is different than for corn, which you were should be like, well, you just try to get it. Of course with the commodity prices and the nitrogen prices, you don’t want to overdo it too much, but there’s less of a penalty. But especially for beets and for wheat, there’s really a penalty.

Trey Allis (05:26):

For having too much.

Lindsay Pease (05:26):

For growing too much.

Trey Allis (05:28):

Yeah. And we’ll get into that a little bit more too, but from a water quality standpoint then is there’s just going to be less available to leach out through those systems. Is that right?

Lindsay Pease (05:36):

Well, yeah. That’s exactly what we were interested in finding out. With these different crops in the rotation, we really have no data on what’s moving through the system, how are these nutrients cycling differently with these different crops, especially something like sugar beets, the root goes really super deep and they regularly soil down to four feet to make sure they get all the nutrients accounted for that the beet could potentially take up. So yeah, it is something that for sure interacts with the drainage and what is available to leach. Yeah.

Trey Allis (06:09):

Sure. And obviously it’s a lot colder up there, different precipitation and stuff like that too. Is there any other reasons why there is that more aggressive crop rotation up in that next of the woods?

Lindsay Pease (06:21):

Yeah. I guess I’m not 100% sure why that crop rotation has persisted. I think some of it is just the corn has been a little slower to move northward. It’s definitely moving in, but there’s still a lot of local processing left, especially for the sugar and markets for the wheat. And so they’re sticking around. So I think it’s really just a market reason. But I think also, I think one of the reasons why the sugar beets have persisted is actually because of our cold climate because they store all of those beets outside all winter long. And so if we didn’t get as cold as we did, they would not have the room for the storage of the beets. And the beet harvest that they do in October lasts them all the way until May. So yeah, that’s, I think, a big factor, at least for the sugar beets.

Trey Allis (07:12):

Yeah. And as it gets into some of your research in your plots there too, it’s interesting to pull out some of those different rotations on how that affects the water quality and the yields. You changed, I guess a lot of variables compared to a lot of the stuff that’s researched down in Iowa, Illinois, heavy corn, soybean rotations and whatnot. So there’s different aspects in play there, but that’s I assume some of the fun.

Lindsay Pease (07:33):

Absolutely.

Trey Allis (07:35):

And [inaudible 00:07:35] there too.

Lindsay Pease (07:35):

Yeah. Absolutely. There’s a big reason why I think it’s interesting. Also, and you mentioned the weather patterns. Mostly all of our moisture, a lot of our moisture comes from the snow melt in the spring. And so you have to deal with that, but also you don’t want to get rid of all your moisture for the year. So this is a really big challenge and something that we have experienced a couple of times where you get the snow melt and then no more rain for the rest of the year or maybe when you do get way too much rain, it’s really hard to deal with. And so that’s where actually I do think that drainage is a really good tool for the soils and for the climate and for helping maintain that soil moisture profile that’s good for the crop.

Trey Allis (08:17):

Yeah. For sure. Being able to utilize the moisture that is there where it’s not drowned out and you still have the ability for crops access, some of that too and having more oxygen in the soil. All of those things that you’re well familiar with. Question on getting into your main site. Give a little high level overview on some of that, how to start.

Lindsay Pease (08:39):

Yeah. Of course. So given how far north I am, I do like to call these plots as Minnesota’s coolest drainage plots by annual average temperature, of course. But I think they’re pretty cool too. And we started this site really, really soon after I started my job. We mentioned earlier, I started in 2018, and these plots went in the fall of 2019. So that was a pretty quick turnaround. I was like, “I really want to get a large scale drainage project.” And what’s different about these plots than some other plots that are in Minnesota is this is a whole field scale experiment. We have a 60 acre field that we are working with and we farm this at the research center. So we have our own crew that goes out with their full size tractors, combines, all the works. And so we farm this whole 60 acres as one unit and we alternate sections of 15 acres with the laterals run, 15 acres without 15 width and 15 without. So we’re alternating drained and under it as we go across.

(09:43):

And this has allowed us to look at the water quality at the site. We are monitoring, we have a lift station for the tile. We also have a lift station for our surface runoff, which is a feature of the research that we have two lift stations. Normally, you could just get away with one, and that was a fairly big expense. But it has been great for making sure that those water streams stay separate. So we actually get a good look at what’s the water quality in the tile versus what’s in the surface runoff.

Trey Allis (10:13):

So you can have that direct comparison on those undrained acres, drained acres, water coming out of the tile, water coming off for runoff.

Lindsay Pease (10:20):

Exactly. Yeah. So this is a great way to look at the overall, again, the big picture. And on this field, it started out the first couple years is soybean wheat rotation. And then in 2024, we did sugar beets and 2025 we went back to wheat. So we haven’t gotten corn out there yet, but it is, I think, in the future of that site. But yeah, we mostly have that wheat, soybeans, and sugar beets that we have taken a look at so far. Yeah.

Trey Allis (10:50):

Sure. And you have some of that data coming through. And can you talk about some of the results that you’ve seen or maybe talk about some of the weather patterns that you’ve had to deal with throughout those years?

Lindsay Pease (11:00):

Yeah. For sure. And again, this is one of those amazing timing things is that the very first summer that we had this installed, like I mentioned, fall 2019, this went in. It was a fairly wet fall. And then it was followed by the wettest growing season that we have had on record since this project went in. And it was really great that we actually got to capture that as part of our data analysis. So back in 2020, we had over seven inches of rain in July, which when you think about normally we only get about 20 for the entire year. This was huge and this was on soybeans. And so I have a lot of pictures from that year and the soybeans just were drowned out in the undrained sections. They looked terrible and really the drainage in the plots, that’s what saved our crop that year because we averaged about 40 in the drain sections and like 37. So it was a three bushel per acre loss in our undrained section, but yeah, they just really looked beat up.

Trey Allis (12:02):

Looked pretty rough. Yeah.

Lindsay Pease (12:03):

Looked pretty rough. And then so that year we got some of our best data collection and some of our most leeching through the tile. We definitely got a lot of water moving, but one outcome of that that I think has been really interesting as I’ve been going back and looking at that data, we definitely did lose nitrogen that year, but it was a soybean year and it wasn’t as much as I thought it would be, to be honest. Really, I think we were also, during that year, we were looking at what was volatilizing and the volatilization losses were greater than our tile drainage losses if you look at-

Trey Allis (12:43):

Sure. Soil sitting full of water with no oxygen, it’s just losing that-

Lindsay Pease (12:47):

It’s losing that to the air. Yeah. So that’s a totally invisible pathway that we don’t always think about when we’re losing nitrogen. And so yeah. Even though we had the tile there, even though the tiles were running all summer long, really from a dollar perspective with the current nitrogen prices, it’s about $3 per acre, which is not insignificant, but it was less than I thought it would be. About a pound per acre is what we lost. So again, I think that’s actually a good story of like, if that’s our worst case scenario and that’s what nitrogen we’re losing in the Northwest, I think that’s actually a great outcome. It’s a great story.

Trey Allis (13:21):

Yeah. Not compared, like you mentioned, some of the other climates, geographies and soils I’m sure has a lot to do with it. In other areas too where a couple [inaudible 00:13:31] here and there. May not make or break you but yeah, seeing those differences within that is pretty interesting.

Lindsay Pease (13:37):

Yeah. And then the year after that, we went into the most extreme drought that again, that we’ve had. So those first two years really were a tale of two extremes and one being as wet as possible and the next is just like somebody turned the water off. And really, again, we saw a similar story of, well, in that year, the tile drains didn’t run at all. But what I think is a really important outcome out of that year is a question that I still get asked, which because tile is a little bit more new in the Northwest and a little bit more rare is, will tile drainage overdrain my soil? And I think with the 2021 drought, we can pretty definitively say, “No, it didn’t overdrain the soil. We had no soil moisture everywhere.”

Trey Allis (14:23):

Yeah. And that was a question that we get into or that I get asked sometimes or there’s that belief out there for tile in a drought can help you sometimes. And this is going to be a question to you that I get and you might have perspective on it, it’s all anecdotal. But from a researcher, tile in a drought, the theory out there as long as you have some moisture in the soil that those roots are going to go down and find it and be a little more robust for when you do have some rain coming in later in throughout the summer. Obviously, if you don’t have rain, you’re screwed a little bit. But is that something that you found with that and did those drain plots still outperform the undrained plots in those droughts?

Lindsay Pease (14:59):

Yeah. So I think what we saw is pretty even performance during the droughts. And one of the reasons for that is actually, I think more due to the installation conditions than actually due to the tile drainage themselves because we also have some other older drainage plots and have seen really no effect of the tile being present on the yields. But what we did see, especially during that first drought is I think we saw a lot of the compaction that we caused from the wet fall and the wet installation and some of that soil is still rebounding. So we had even and maybe slightly lower yields, but again, looking at the soil moisture and the moisture availability and the way that the crop developed, I don’t think it was from the soil moisture.

Trey Allis (15:46):

Right. It wasn’t necessarily moisture related more.

Lindsay Pease (15:48):

It was more compaction related. Yes.

Trey Allis (15:50):

What about say last couple years for some of the data that you’re seeing. Now you’re rotating through, like you said, soybeans, wheat-

Lindsay Pease (15:59):

And sugar beets. Yeah.

Trey Allis (16:00):

Sprinkling is some sugar beef now too.

Lindsay Pease (16:01):

Yeah. So the sugar beats we had in 2024, and really I think the beets benefited a lot from the tile as well. It didn’t come out so much in the final yields that we got, but especially during pre-pile, those beets were ahead. Again, we were better on rain, but still a little bit short on rain. And I think that we really saw the tile helping those beets get off to a better start, better stand establishment, and then better produced beets, better higher quality beets in the drain section once we actually went to harvest. And so that was a really good story. We did have a bit of some rain in between pre-pile and the final harvest that allowed, I think, those undrained beats to catch up a little bit. But we actually do also have looking across, we grew beets somewhere else and some drain and undrained parts of the farm that year too.

(17:02):

And when you look at the two sites together, we did have better sugar content and so actually higher quality beets on the drain section than the undrained section, which again is good news both from a yield perspective, what you’re taking home at the end of the day, but also from a water quality perspective, because that means that the beets were using that nitrogen that was available to them and in a really efficient way. Putting on the sugar that you want them to be putting on and not just putting on size and so that was a great outcome.

Trey Allis (17:29):

Right. Essentially given the opportunity for the crop to live up to that potential that you’re putting in your inputs for that, you’re doing all the work in the field and all that too. And I assume timeliness has played a little bit of role in there too.

Lindsay Pease (17:42):

Yes.

Trey Allis (17:43):

I know that’s something on some previous plots maybe where it was well, we have to wait for all of it to get ready to whatever … To till or spray or plant whatever all at the same time. Is that something that you guys were doing on your plots as well, is waiting for that whole field or did you do it up separately in undrained?

Lindsay Pease (18:00):

That is one of the downsides of having these split plots is we do wait until the whole field is ready to be able to plant or do those operations. So yeah. We don’t necessarily have that benefit of maybe one to two extra days, which is something else that we can see when we look at the temperature data and we look at the moisture data, the drain sections are ready a couple of days before. And especially when you have such a short growing season, every single day is important. And so I do think that that’s a benefit that maybe with the current design we’re not able to get at quite as much, but I will say anecdotally, the guys who farm it do think that even without the whole field being tiled, they are able to get into that field a little bit sooner than they would have otherwise.

(18:49):

And so again, this is one of those. It’s a real world experiment and so we don’t have plastic barriers or anything keeping the water moving from the undrained section to the drain section. And so I do think there is a little bit of water movement, slow water movement from the undrained sections is probably making the whole field a little bit drier.

Trey Allis (19:08):

Sure.

Lindsay Pease (19:08):

Yeah.

Trey Allis (19:09):

Yep. Yeah. And easier to do some of those operations as well. So like I said, it’s hard to account for all of this stuff in one site. But again, it’s cool and I appreciate you being able to talk through some of these nuances, some of the other little things that are out there for how this is going to impact farmers and some of those decisions. Like I said, some of the questions that I get a lot or some of the perspectives that are out there as well to see if that matches up with the numbers that you guys are getting too.

Lindsay Pease (19:34):

For sure. Yeah.

Trey Allis (19:37):

You mentioned some of the water quality stuff a little bit, and I’m curious. So we’re talking about nitrogen and some of the leaching and the crop being able to utilize it. Talk about some of the runoff and some of the phosphorus and whatnot. I know that’s a bigger issue up in the valley where water goes north up to Winnipeg and some of those challenges with that. Can you talk about some of those results or what you’ve been finding in that realm?

Lindsay Pease (20:00):

Absolutely. Yeah. So the phosphorus questions and the runoff questions, especially coming from another phosphorous impacted watershed Western Lake Erie Basin, which anybody who has heard about water quality probably knows about. And Chesapeake Bay is the same way. So there’s some really heavily affected phosphorus watersheds. And so again, these questions hadn’t been answered for the Red River Basin and what our conditions are and what we’re experiencing. And one of the big things that I’ve really seen and confirmed on our plots is that the tile water comes off with a lower phosphorus concentration than the surface runoff. And so actually having the tile out there, particularly in the summer and the fall months are going to actually lower some of our phosphorous runoff because that opportunity for the water to infiltrate into the soil and be filtered out a little bit. That phosphorous is, I like to call it sticky, and it sticks to the soil.

(20:57):

So if you have the opportunity for that phosphorus to move into the soil profile, it’s probably going to stick there and it’s probably going to stay there. But you do really run into trouble when you have a lot of water moving across the surface. But one of the differences I would say that the Red River Basin has compared to other places in the US, again, relates to the cold climate. We usually freeze so deep in the winter that a lot of that spring snow melt where people would really start to be concerned, there’s a lot of soil phosphorus moving. I will say that the tiles don’t get to intercept a lot of that runoff. A lot of water and a lot of that big flooding isn’t going to be affected by the presence or the absence of tile. And so that one is a little bit of like a, well, our bigger … We still need to do some erosion control. We still need to have some practices on the ground surface to help prevent that from happening because the soils are frozen in between the top of the soil and the tiles. So that is one time of the year that we don’t have the opportunity for that filtering effect of the soil.

Trey Allis (22:06):

Right. So there’s not going to be much of an impact there. Like you said, even a positive one of having that the soil be sticky and hanging out of that phosphorus. Everything’s frozen there anyways, all that water’s moving. And again, a little bit of a different problem when you’re talking some of the nature of things that we’re looking at versus runoff now, where you have practices like the buffers and slowing that water down a little bit, let some of that phosphorus settle out. Are there any other practices or any other strategies that are going on in the basin for combating some of those runoff problems?

Lindsay Pease (22:41):

Yeah. I think the big things for looking at the runoff are anything that slows that water down. So that could be a buffer, it could be a grassed waterway, it could be … Yeah. Grassed waterways are something that’s a total, total out of left field. I think we don’t utilize enough, especially in Northwest Minnesota. We’ve got a lot of swales and scrape swales that can probably benefit. But we also have … Yeah. I think you can do cover crops and some rye on the field, or even in the fall, some oats and that stuff will winter kill, but having a little bit of residue, increasing the surface roughness is something that we all learn in our engineering hydrology classes that anything that roughs up the surface and slows the water down, trying to think about some opportunities to do less tillage in the fall because all through the growing season, that crop actually makes a pretty nice mat. And I know that’s what the tillage is for is to keep that mat from being there in the spring, but I’m not saying don’t do spring tillage. I’m saying maybe hold off on some fall tillage if you can stomach it just because all that crop residue actually can do a good job holding the soil in place over the winter.

Trey Allis (24:04):

Right. That’s the reason that I ask the question is, like I said, it’s a little bit different water quality problems than what a lot of the rest of the Midwest is looking at with some of that stuff too. Just talking through some of the strategies that are out there for that, if we’re worried about some of the soil moving, there’s, again, these practices and constipation practices that are there to keep that soil where it is, yep, it’s going to take a little bit of change in some minds and perspectives on probably namely tillage. There’s opportunities that are out there for solving some of these problems, the way I always say it is tools in the toolbox. Again, whether we’re talking about saturated buffers, bioreactors, other regular buffers, wetlands, storage ponds, things like that are all part of the calculus that goes in with looking at, I guess it’s engineering. But part of it that goes into looking at some of these problems and different ways to address them based on the different landscapes, different weathers, different crops, all the other things with it.

Lindsay Pease (24:56):

Yeah. I think something really big that I’ve learned studying water quality in tile drainage, especially is that there are some nutrient losses that if you’re doing the absolute best that you can, there are always going to be some losses that you can’t prevent or that nothing that really aren’t your fault as the farmer. And I actually think that’s why I really love some of these conservation drainage practices or edge of field practices, like you just mentioned, because those are opportunities to put something at the edge of your field to help catch, to help stop those losses that are just incidental. And from an environmental perspective, even those incidental losses can add up, especially over a whole watershed or a whole field. So yeah. That’s really one of the reasons I think those practices are so great.

Trey Allis (25:47):

Yeah. And it’s like I said, you’re going to take pairing a lot of that stuff there and it’s not a one size fits all by any means. But having that information out there, and again, a lot of the research that you’re working on a lot of your other colleagues as well is putting that stuff together to put numbers to what we’re seeing to help address the right things in the right spots too. And another, I guess, practice looking at maybe your sites moving forward, I think you’re looking into some controlled drainage and some of the opportunities that come with that through the lift stations. Can you talk about some of that a little bit?

Lindsay Pease (26:18):

Yes. No. That’s, I think something else that’s been really exciting that we’ve been finding on our site is, as I mentioned, you can see a little bit of that water movement maybe from the undrained section to the drained section. Some of why we know that is because we’ve been looking at water table levels throughout this whole 60 acre field and we put a whole bunch of water table wells out this past summer. We finally got rain in the summer after 2020 when we really didn’t have much the last several years. And we could see in the water table well data, when the lift stations were on and when they were off, you actually are getting water table control with a lift station, which I think is really, really exciting because that means that there’s a tool that so many farmers already have installed that they could be using for controlled drainage. And what it requires then to be able to take advantage of that is possibly switching that lift station on and off. Maybe when you’re dry, switching that lift station off. There’s a literal switch on our lift station to make this super easy to possibly hold back some water during times of drought.

(27:29):

In 2021, I don’t think it would’ve made a difference, we were that dry. But 2022 and 2023, when we got those timely rains, if we’d possibly had the lift stations off, if we’d had a crop that can maybe withstand a little bit more moisture for a couple of days, you can really start playing around with that controlled drainage. Especially in Ohio we’ve seen it’s modest increases in yield, but those increases in yield are there when you get precipitation at the right time. So I think this is a tool that would be very cool to test out, to really start quantifying and also to then think about the water quality benefits.

(28:09):

What water quality benefits do you get from maybe turning your lift stations off in the fall, maybe a little bit sooner than you would otherwise? And if you could prevent a little bit of tile flow in the fall, that can go sometimes a long way to either storing water in the profile or getting that benefit of filtering From the soil and playing around with those ideas some.

Trey Allis (28:33):

Concluding your hypotheses and moving that forward for a farmer here in the future of being able to utilize their structures for control drainage. What does that look like?

Lindsay Pease (28:47):

Yeah. I think what that looks like is really, like you mentioned, really adjusting those set limits. So there’s a certain water level when the pumps kick on and a certain level when they kick off. And just really simply by reprogramming them so that maybe they hold onto water a little bit longer, because of course if you do get seven inches of rain in July, you don’t want to hold all of that back. So you do still want some safety capacity there and you don’t want to risk a drown out, but you could probably push those limits a little bit more than we are, especially later in the season and when the roots are deeper, maybe the crop is more established and again, can handle a little bit more. And of course, this is going to be different for the different crops we have. Soybeans may have a different tolerance than corner for wheat or even sugar beets. So I think this is going to be really exciting to start to look at what are the different tolerances for the crops and what are those recommendations going to be? Because yes, it’s pretty easy to say like, “Well, you can just turn off the lift station,” but then the question is, “Well, when do you turn it back on what’s safe and what’s not? ” Yeah.

Trey Allis (29:53):

Yeah. And that’s interesting. So we had Scott and Josh with Agri Drain on here maybe a month or two ago. And essentially they’re doing some same things on gravity outlets with all their structures and [inaudible 00:30:05] with that through the field too. And obviously where those practices work best are on flat fields and essentially that’s what all there is up in the valley.

(30:13):

So yeah. Curious on how that it’s essentially already automated. There’s already those set points in there. They just have to manipulate and modify. And again, just putting more numbers to answering some of those questions on, okay, well, if I am growing this, when do I do X, Y, and Z at different stages for the crop or where the roots are at and all the other things too. So that’s going to be interesting to have that pan out a little bit more and put more numbers in some of those questions.

Lindsay Pease (30:38):

Yeah. I’m really excited. And I am interested. And of course I’m pretty interested in thinking about how the two systems might be able to work together. The lift stations. I’m also aware of the automated controlled drainage that Agri Drain’s coming out with and thinking about, yeah, can these two systems actually work together in some ways to get parts of the field? Because our fields are … Even though they look flat and they look similar, they have some differences. And of course, there are also instances where a lift station may control multiple fields. And so yeah, really thinking about leveraging that to its full potential I think is, again, would be a really cool future extension of this work.

Trey Allis (31:17):

Yeah. For sure. I guess with that, speaking to that, what else do you have either planned for your site or I guess maybe going back, are there any other results or conclusions that you came up with for your site here in the last five years?

Lindsay Pease (31:29):

Yeah. I think overall, some of the future work that we have planned, in addition to looking at the controlled drainage, this field is in a very visible part of town and a lot of snow blows across this field. And so we are actually asked a lot of the time about things like snow fences and trees, just because a lot of people are driving down this field. And so there could be some future work about like, what is there anything we can do? And if we do have to put a snow fence up along the road, does the tile actually help dry that out a little bit quicker? I think would be one really big answer, which is a reality, especially as we’re dealing with all this blowing snow.

(32:20):

We also are looking at, with … The winter between 2024 and 2025, we didn’t have a lot of snow cover. And so there was a lot of blowing dirt in Northwest Minnesota. And that I think exposed a lot of how much we rely on that snow cover to help keep soil in place. And so we’ve been playing around with, could we switch to some more reduced tillage practices on this field as well, putting in those erosion control practices, like I mentioned earlier. What can we do? And of course we’re tracking all of those metrics like what are we making back? What are our yields? How long is it taking to respond? And so we’re pushing our farm a little bit to make those changes, to hopefully answer some questions down the line. And I think that’ll be a cool thing we could talk about with these plots too, especially those effective on water quality.

Trey Allis (33:11):

Yeah. For sure. And yeah, be able to have you back on and talk through some of that stuff here in the future as well.

Lindsay Pease (33:15):

Yes. For sure.

Trey Allis (33:17):

Cool. I guess another thing that wanted to have you take the floor on a little bit is a workshop coming up here later on this spring.

Lindsay Pease (33:25):

Yes. So this has been really exciting. Yeah. For many years, University of Minnesota or the state of Minnesota hasn’t really had a tiling workshop and NDSU had one for a while too, but they also have been on hiatus. So myself and Laxmi Prasad, who’s new tile extension engineer at NDSU.q We decided to work together on putting together a tiling workshop for Minnesota and North Dakota. This year, it will be on March 18th in Fargo that’ll be on NDSU’s campus. So look for some details on that soon. And we are just really excited one day workshop just to start to get the ball rolling again on this tile education that we know that there are a lot of questions left to be answered and a lot of data like I’m sharing today that would be really … I’m sure lots of people are curious about. And so yeah, that’s our plan for this year and hopefully expanding that to more locations in the future.

Trey Allis (34:26):

Yeah. For sure. And that’s something that we identified that need within our industry as well. We put on some clinics, I don’t want to say they’re schools because they’re not as in depth. But talking through some of that stuff from pipe installation and from layout and design and making sure you do have your bang for your buck and also what are those tools that are out there for conservation drainage practices and things like that too. Wanted to mention there are a few others. Universities in this CDN and in our sphere that are working on some of the similar stuff. So I think Michigan State has their drainage school on three through five March. And then the Ohio State University is going to be later on in March, I think 16th through the 20th. And then also shameless plug is with ADMC. We are planning a handful of webinars that’s going to cover some similar topics that geared toward contractors. And again, revolving around these practices and installation and some of the tools that are out there here later on in February too. So there’s going to be a lot more opportunity for those that are interested to come get this information. And it’s good to have that sprinkled out throughout the Midwest and different locations and it’s good to have it back in active here in Minnesota and North Dakota too.

Lindsay Pease (35:38):

Yeah. Definitely. I agree.

Trey Allis (35:41):

Awesome. Well, I think that covered a lot of stuff. I appreciate you for coming on and sharing a lot about your research and your pathway here. And again, thanks for coming on. Thanks for a lot of the work that you’re doing with, again, some of the uniqueness going on up in the Red River Valley and like you said, putting numbers to a lot of things that are already going on out there so we can better know what we’re doing to make those improvements moving forward. So Lindsay, thanks a lot for coming on.

Lindsay Pease (36:04):

Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Trey Allis (36:06):

Also appreciate your earrings.

Lindsay Pease (36:07):

Oh yes, of course. Yes.

Trey Allis (36:08):

I noticed those about right away too.

Lindsay Pease (36:10):

Yeah. Of course. And these are my Prinsko-

Trey Allis (36:14):

They are Prinsko pipe. I can tell.

Lindsay Pease (36:15):

My Prinko pipe. Yes. And the earrings if anybody’s watching the video, I have a pair of tile drainage earrings that I wear because when we were soil sampling Minnesota’s coolest drainage plots, we accidentally dropped a soil probe through one of our tile lines because as I mentioned, we do soil sample down to a depth of about four feet. So we of course intercepted the tile. And to commemorate the event, my technician who was working with me at the time made them into a pair of earrings, which I wear anytime I am talking about tile drainage.

Trey Allis (36:47):

Perfect. Oh, that’s awesome. Awesome. Thanks Lindsay.

Lindsay Pease (37:09):

Yeah, of course.

Podcast Episode 142

Minnesota’s Coolest Drainage Plots

Episode 142 | 37 min

With Guests:

Listen Now

Guest Bios

Dr. Lindsay Pease

Trey Allis

Transcript

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Podcast Episode 142

Minnesota’s Coolest Drainage Plots

Episode 142 | 37 min

With Guests:

Listen Now

Also Available On

Guest Bios

Dr. Lindsay Pease

Trey Allis

Transcript

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