Thinkin again!

Had to run up north a bit to pick up some equipment and stopped by a field to pick up some dimensional posts to use for cribbing so the darn corn head didn't eat the fenders on the car hauler I bought instead of the equipment trailer I SHOULDA bought. All the way to the back of the corn, weren't no posts there not that it matters, but the corn is standing in water. Never saw water there before this year. Got me to thinking again about maybe I should have some tile put in. I have no idea how much this costs. Can someone give me an idea? AND, what are the chances if I put in tile I will end up throwing the entire middle of the country into the worst drought in history? That's the way things been going lately. Planted the first corn here I had grown in years. All it took was my bitty acreage to create a glut on the market and corn dropped $5!

Four inch tile plowed in is around $.75-1.00 per foot including tile. Trenched in is about $.50 per foot higher.

Six inch is around $1.25-1.50 plowed in and right at $1.75 trenched in.

Then you will pay for each connection to the laterals.

I usually estimate $2 per foot to cover all cost an it usually is real close.

You might need a permit to tile a area that hasn't been tiled before?

I would tell you that you were nuts, because the Right to Farm Act in Michigan protects us, right? Afraid not! At least not in our township. I am looking at a potential lawsuit with the township over the right to put up my pole barn to house the equipment I leave on the place. Claim they have ordinances prohibiting a barn on property that is zoned for agricultural use only unless you put up a house on the property and actually live on it. Currently I have a couple options. (1) Leave a lot of expensive equipment out in the weather or (2) drive the equipment back and forth 20 miles on busy roads at considerable risk or (3) hire a lawyer to enforce RTF Act. SO, you may be right about the tiling. Our NATURAL watershed is into the back of the property next door. There is a large low area...no open water or marsh land...which collects all the water and eventually feeds it into a drain back in the woods. We shed a lot of water into that system as we are higher. I would bet once I tiled and ran it into that area they would be all over me. Even though the entire mile of road in front has ditches running right into the front yard of the same place thence into the back. I think I will deal with them on the barn first...then tackle the drainage.

IF I tile I would likely run it into a low area in the center of my property and then let it overflow across the center of the SE field the way it does now in the natural system. It would leave me with a wet strip across that field but at least it would be the same natural watershed action.

And, since you have clearly indicated that area now holds water, if the DEQ/EPA get their way, you will have to get a permit from them to see if they will Allow you to affect their water....