Tiling

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Impact Farms' relationship with the Land:

Impact Farms recognizes the benefit of having fields properly tiled. A good majority of the farmland we own and rent is pattern tiled. We work with landowners to consider pattern tiling in order to improve timely drainage, while reducing nutrient runoff, making the farm more economical and adding value to the land. Proper tiling will in turn improve yields, making variability more predictable. Pattern tiling also allows for timely access to the field which we consider one of the keys to our success.

Advantages of Proper Tiling

Throughout time people have done tiling in different ways. Some have installed tile in the wettest known parts of the farm only. Throughout time farm operations like ours have started to pattern tile whole farms or whole sections of farms at a time.

When farms are pattern tiled the consistency of yield is really noticed. Even drainage from the tile allows machinery to get in the field quicker, allows for nutrients to be used more evenly and helps slow down water flow in heavy rains because the soil is more porous. The goal is to not drain the water out of the whole farm but rather to evenly absorb the water for plant intake throughout the season.

The distance between the tile lines is very important. Twenty years ago 70 tile spacing in heavy soils was considered close enough but now with technology we can see the benefits of better yields when tile are placed 50 feet apart or less.