The AgFirst led, MPI SFFF and industry co-funded “What’s coming out of Tile Drains?” project seeks to understand what degree discharge of water from horticultural tile drains may impact water quality.
The three years of water monitoring throughout this project has coincided with the normal season of 2021, and two very wet seasons in 2022 and 2023, but despite this we have seen a range of tile drain flow behaviour at monitored sites.
Some tiles are regularly dry on our monitoring visits, some flow only after rainfall, and some are always flowing. The unique environment around each tile contributes significantly to the resulting behaviour of the tile, so now we are trying to join all these puzzle pieces together.
Adequate drainage is important for crop resilience, so growers the horticultural industry wants to proactively understand any impact they may be having on waterways, in order to protect them for the wider community and future generations.
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