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Water Management on Your Farm: Resilience

Changing climate and its impact on farming

Predictions show that summers will be drier with wetter winters, how this impacts your business will depend on your business needs and location. However, putting in measures now to slow flow, improve soil structure and enhance the ecosystem services provided from the land could significantly help businesses mitigate against changing weather patterns.

Here we discuss methods to improve water retention on farm.

Resilient techniques to combat a water scarcity in a changing climate

There are a number of techniques available to farmers when combating water scarcity, including:

Reducing compaction
Buffers/3D buffers
‘Magic Margins’
Tree & hedge planting
Cover crops
Crop choice
Ploughing techniques

Some will be more suitable for your land and system than others, so it’s worth reviewing the benefits and requirements of each before making a decision.

Reducing compaction

Compacted soil allows little or no water to drain through pores and cracks, preventing the soils’ ability to retain and hold water. As a result, water flows off the field and reduces the volume of water that can be utilised by crops and vegetation. By reducing compaction farmers can experience higher yields, healthier soils and retain water on site for longer, among other benefits. To begin, you need to assess your soil. You can do this by a Visual Evaluation of Soil Structure assessment and through an infiltration rate assessment, Farming and Water Scotland have produced a how-to video to show how you can quickly assess your soil. Through understanding the condition of your soil you can start to make changes to help year-round. Methods to reduce compaction are listed below and more information can be found in the Alleviating Soil Compaction Practical Guide.

Introduce buffer strips
Tyre choice – could you use a wider tyre to reduce pressure on the soil?
Could you avoid the use of machinery on certain areas which are prone to compaction at times of heavy rainfall?
Could you move livestock off compacted soil after wet periods to allow the soil to recover?

Further resources

Soil Structure and Compaction

Soil & Nutrients

Valuing your Soils

PEPFAA Code: Soils

Soil Association: Soil health

Using Organic Matter to Alleviate Water Scarcity

Buffers/3D buffers

Introducing 3D buffers, which are multipurpose buffer strips to your land can offer innovative and beneficial natural process to retain water on your land.

Figure 1 Example 3D buffer strip

Figure 1 shows the design of a 3D buffers, which are riparian buffer strips, utilising overland, surface and sub-surface interchange, to strengthen and improve the ecosystem services that buffers can provide. These systems hold soil together, allowing for an in-depth root system to retain water in the soil, reduce bare soil and runoff pathways. The areas roughness is increased, allowing for longer retention and a stable soil structure to be developed.

You need to ensure that your buffer strips complies with General Binding Rules (GBRs) and be aware that buffers, depending on where they are situated have various minimum distance, which are required to comply, as shown in Figure 2. 3D buffer stipes are designed to be 6-12 meters, depending on the requirements of the area.

Figure 2: Mind the Gap banner to show minimum legal working distance from watercourses

Further information

3D Buffer Zones

3D Buffer factsheet

3D Buffer strip podcast

Magic Margins

Magic margins are modified field margins designed to reduce surface runoff and erosion on sloping farmland. They are a practical, nature-based solution that slows the flow of water and helps keep soil and nutrients on the field where they can do good. A Magic margin is a three-dimensional feature made up of ridges that run across the slope. Small dams between the ridges help to slow water from flowing along the margin too quickly, further slowing down water and increasing infiltration.

Figure 3 Example of how a Magic Margin Functions

Further information

Reducing Surface Runoff and Erosion with ‘Magic Margins

Magic Margins – helping maintain soil on farm podcast

Tree/hedge planting

By planting hedgerows and trees within your land you can enhance your land’s ability to retain water and protect the soil. As with buffer strips, hedgerows and trees bind the soil together, allowing for natural buffers to help maintaining soil structure and retain water in the soil and plants. They can be planted as field boundary, but in addition in the correct location, trees can offer great benefit within the land, be it for shelter, forming wildlife corridors, or reducing the impact of flooding.

Further information

Farm woodlands

Riparian Planting for land management

Woodland & Hedgerows

Cover crops

As winters are predicted to become wetter, it is increasingly important to protect bare soil from erosion and run off. Bare soil is vulnerable to erosion and offers little, or no resistance to surface water runoff. Introducing vegetation to areas, which previously may have been left bare allows for the water to be utilised and held within the land. The soil is protected from erosion, while the velocity of water flow through the land can be reduced, allowing time for the water to infiltrate through the soil, enabling water to remain in situ for longer periods and be used.

Cover crops can offer multiple benefits to your soil, as can be seen in the Farming for a Better Climate guide. However, you need to ensure that you plant the most relevant crop to your needs. Information can be found within the Keeping soil covers Practical Guide on different criteria you should look at when deciding what and why to plant.

Cover crops can help improve the microorganisms within your soil, improve soil structure and reducing compaction. This will assist your land to filter water efficiently and help retain water within your soil throughout the year. Therefore, providing your farm more resilience against water scarcity.

Further information

Cover and Catch crops

The use of cover crops

The Benefits of cover crops video

What’s grown in the field

With summers predicted to become drier, farmers may want to begin to think about the crops that they grow on their land. In certain areas around Scotland the impact of drier summers is impacting yield. Potentially moving to drought resistant varieties, or crops, which require less water may become a viable option for many businesses.

Moving away from a monoculture pattern and allowing different crops, with different water requirement and root depths to grow alongside each other may offer solutions for business struggling with water shortages. Crops would not be competing for the identical nutrients and water from the soil, allowing them to grow alongside each other, while offering more biodiversity to the area. This increases robustness and the ecosystem services the crops provide to the land, enhancing the available services.

Further information

Break crops

Ploughing technique

Modifying ploughing techniques can help retain water on your land. Moving to a system where you follow the natural contours of the land can aid water retention and reduce runoff. In addition, looking to minimum, low or no tillage can have great benefit to soil management and retaining water on farm.