AYERSVILLE, Ohio — The week before Christmas 2022, and before those lower-than-normal temperatures hit, was a busy week for ditching contractor Bob Kruse. He had a 19-acre field to finish tiling before the predicted nasty weather showed up. He finished in time, and had another happy farmer customer, for both having the drainage tile installed, and the tax write-off for the year.

For those who don’t know what the words “tiling” or “ditching” mean, it is a process that is used to drain the subsurface of soil. The concept of tiling or ditching has been around for 2,000-plus years, but in the United States, the idea of tiling or ditching started around 1838, when a farmer by the name of Johnson buried some clay tubes in a farm field in the state of New York. In a simple form, the tile is buried on a small slope, or fall, the water eventually draining into a drainage ditch that eventually takes the subsurface water to a river or lake.

When the old Northwest Territory area was settled, the concept of tiling was brought with the settlers. In the case of Northwest Ohio, the area known as the Great Black Swamp was not settled immediately, because of the swampy conditions. When the idea of ditches and drainage tile became a reality in the Great Black Swamp, was the swamp drained, and fertile farm fields were realized.

Kruse has been in the ditching business for 14 years. He lives just outside of Ayersville, Ohio, on the family farm, which is in Defiance County. He said he has been fascinated with the ditching business since he was a little kid, when his grandpa hired a ditcher to install drainage tile on the home farm. Graduating from Ayersville High School, he was searching for a career path and found it with a local ditching contractor, who promptly hired him. After working a few years, a ditching contractor from another close town decided to retire, and Kruse purchased the business and started out on his own.

Asked if he started the business cold turkey, or had some mentoring, Kruse said the gentleman he bought out has always been available for questions and advice when needed.

Technology has been the biggest change in the ditching business over the last 100 yars. Surveying and automatic machine controls using lasers have been a big technological help, along with GPS, with the GPS set to eventually overtake the laser technology, as the GPS with the use of satellites, can survey, collect data, control the ditching machine and even create tile maps when a ditching project is done. Also today, tile is systematically installed in an entire field, in runs of anywhere from 15 to 50 feet between laterals, not like years ago, where a single, random tile run would be used to “cure” a wet area. Kruse stated that the value of tile has proven itself over time, as farmers are installing tile to increase crop production and to maintain healthy soil.

Kruse has two ditching machines, a tile plow machine, which as its name implies, literally plows the tile into the ground, and also a wheel machine, which like ditchers of old, the wheel digs a continuous trench to lay the tile into. Kruse uses the wheel machine primarily for outlet trenches, then the tile plow to make the tile runs connect to the outlet. 

How many feet of tile can be run in a day varies according to the length of the runs and field conditions. Generally, tiles run from 800 to 2,200 feet per acre of ground and in a day’s time, he can install anywhere from 10,000 to 40,000 feet of 4-inch tile. Kruse has installed anywhere from 4-inch tile to 15-inch, dual wall tile, again, depending on the farmer’s needs and wants for drainage. 

He said clay is the easiest soil to tile. Clay soil fields are generally flatter and easier to lay out, as opposed to sand, which is challenging to work in because of the rolling topography. Sand fields are prone to trenches caving in and tile with larger slots allows the sand to enter into the tile, thereby plugging it from draining.

Kruse also shared that studies are showing that plastic tile can last up to 100 years or more. Clay tile has been around much longer than that, but clay tile does not drain as effectively as plastic tile, as plastic tile shows to drain 300 percent more water, due to its perforations in the tile, as opposed to the clay tile.

He said the biggest challenges in his job are rocks and weather. The biggest rock he has hit and had to dig out so far was a 4-foot diameter, 5-foot-long rock, as big as a riding lawn mower. Weather is the biggest challenge though. Ideal tiling conditions are when the ground is dry, as wet conditions can cause compaction and trench smearing, which then leads to a system not performing like it should.

Another challenge is finding good employees, although Kruse stated that he has been blessed with good employees for the last few years now, even in this intense, crazy, labor market.