Mole Drainage: A Possible Alternative to Pipe Drainage in Vertisols

In vertisols with high clay content, water drains very slowly when they are wet. Because of this reason, successful drainage requires closely spaced tile drainage systems, in the order of 2–10 meter spacing. In most situations this would be too expensive and it would be impractical to substitute them with open drainage network. Mole drainage technology is a pipe less drainage technology and has been in use in UK, New Zealand and Australia. At the Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Bhopal, initial studies were carried out to investigate the feasibility of mole drainage in vertisols as a substitute for the conventional tile drainage system. Initial results of the study indicated that the mole drainage could be adopted in vertisols as an alternative to pipe drainage.