Benefits of Land Drain Flushing

Financial – Installation of new land drains can cost up to 9 euro/meter, not including the cost of re-instating the grass surface and the associated loss in production waiting for the reseeded grass to grow. Land drain flushing costs only a fraction of this and there are no-instatement costs.

Economic – Better functioning land drains means drier soils. In areas of high rain fall and heavy soils this means more productivity, fertilizers are utilized more by plants and crops grow better.

Environmental – Land that is drained well has less surface water run-off, therefore less soil erosion, less poaching and less fertilizer being washed away. The carbon footprint is significantly less than if new drains are installed.

Low Pressure/High Volume – Care must be taken when flushing older land drains. Both plastic and clay pipes become brittle with time. The flushing process uses a low pressure but high volume flow pump to ensure no damage to the aging pipes.

Animal Liver Fluke– Incidence of animal liver fluke increase greatly in wet conditions. Drier soils as a result of land drain flushing helps minimise these occurrences and results in better animal welfare and more profitability for the farmer.

1