Drain tiling saves area crops
BY ALYSSA MEIER
Editor
Fields were tilled, seeds were planted and the land was nourished with plenty of sunlight and rain - but still, nothing grows. It’s a farmer’s worst nightmare and salt is to blame.
Father and son farmers, Dick and Rick Tweeten have lived the nightmare themselves. High water tables cause salt to naturally rise to the surface. Once it is there, leaving visible white patches on the surface, the land is often completely unusable.
"Nothing will grow there. Those white areas, they’re not very productive. Production is cut for several hundred feet around those areas by a third or less," Rick said.
"Land is expensive - $4,000 or $5,000 an acre. In that particular quarter, there are 8 or 10 acres that haven’t been producing," Dick said. "10 acres times $5,000 is quite a bit of money."
