More than 35 years of research shows growers with “high water-table” soils can reap corn yield benefits from subsurface tiling and, at the same time, improve the effectiveness of their conservation practices.

Purdue University agronomist Eileen Kladivko has spent much of her nearly 44-year career involved in field drainage studies at the university’s Southeast Purdue Ag Center (SEPAC) near Butlerville, Ind., seeking to improve the structure and productivity of the area’s Clermont silt loam soils. Looking back, she’s convinced addressing drainage issues — even with soils that are naturally resistant to optimum waterflow — is the first effective step to improving farm productivity.

“There are soils with fragipan or claypan, or glacial till at 2 or 3 feet deep. The water gets to that level and then builds up and ponds to form a high water table at certain times of the year,” she explains. 

It’s under those conditions properly placed drainage tiles can provide both short- and long-term benefits such as:

• More timely field operations in the spring
• Improved yields
• Positive interaction with conservation practices
• Improved cover crop growth

Kladivko’s research began in the early 1980s when the university began studying perforated plastic pipe as a drainage medium and its…