Soil Hydration - Totally Saturated.

[@BouncyTownRentals]

The fact that you have water running off the property speaks to the success of your restoration efforts. Let the extra water go and watch land that’s not even yours come back to life.

[@AussiePharmer]

Nice result. You might not be able to catch this excess, but planting some swamp gums, saligna, casaurina and bottle brush will help sweat in the heat and cool your land. And the fertility will creep back into your place with the fungi.

[@joy4ki]

We had a huge Willow & Mulberry tree in the damp areas of yard.

[@FatCowFarmTatong]

Hey Joy, the problem I have is that its in the middle of the paddock. I'll look at maybe fencing a hedge row and planting those sort of trees. Great idea. Cheers

[@jameswestgate416]

I really am no expert but it seems like a great location for a pond/dam of some kind. If you dig down then the water can then have the opportunity to move laterally through the land again at a lower depth. Love the content, keep up the good work.

[@FatCowFarmTatong]

Thanks James, the space to the boundary fence is just too close. I'm thinking that I'll keep it as a natural wet land for the herons and water birds.

[@kdenyer1]

Think of it as you have successfully filled that bit of land is now full. 😊

[@FatCowFarmTatong]

Thanks for the comments, I think you are spot on.

[@CampAndDriveAustralia]

That was my thinking too. Retaining 100% of water doesn’t mean retaining every drop that makes its way into the property. It means maximising the amount of water the property can hold. I reckon he’s done that here.

[@rocksteadfarm]

It looks like a good spot for a small wetland. If you keep the livestock off the area, you would increase the natural diversity on the property, and provide habitat for many species.

[@terratribefarm]

If you planted out more native wetland trees/shrubs could you keep it for the wildlife. Or maybe a series of filtration and then capturing the water before it leaves and redirected elsewhere

[@666bruv]

Looking at the lack of growth either side of that wet flow, there needs to be a few feet of growth in those paddocks. This is similar to an oasis in a desert. Look at Allen Savory, or any of the new pasture management people doing wholistic grazing

[@misacarter5128]

You seem to be a NSF fan - one of things Peter Andrew’s says is that the landscape used to contain lots of chain of ponds and boggy meadows. Maybe this could be fenced out and remain a seasonal boggy area. Maybe you will get different vegetation coming up if stock has controlled access. You could also plant around the edges of it which could be awesome for diversity - more insects and birds - also some fodder trees and shrubs you could use as browse. We have spots like this come up on the sides of hills. I am pretty sure ours reflects compaction and poor aggregation of soil rather than good infiltration of water. Something to consider, I have seen many reg land managers mention dams and run off etc drying up because it all gets infiltrated into the soil. If you want to see what your soil is actually like with water - do some soil infiltration tests and see how quickly water is absorbed 🙏

[@FatCowFarmTatong]

Yeah I like the idea. I'll need to work a few things out in my head first. I like the idea planting out the edges and fencing off.

[@misacarter5128]

@@FatCowFarmTatong or if you need/want a dam - you can do the same thing, fence it off and plant it out. 🙏

[@SRussy4325]

I’m not sure why you would expect to hold every drop of water on your property? You have done a very good job at slowing the surface flow down to get it to infiltrate back to the aquifer which is getting it back to closer to how it would have behaved before the farm was cleared of the native vegetation. But all of that water would not have stayed there in the previous native system, once the soils were saturated it would have continued to flow downhill to provide water to other areas, exactly like it is doing now. Putting in dams is just going to deprive ecosystems downhill from you of that water.

[@FatCowFarmTatong]

Your right, thanks for the comments. cheers

[@lesboucher542]

There are a couple of good suggestions below. I was also thinking along the lines of ponds and pumping the water to where it is needed higher up on your property. Would it be possible to put in swales further up to catch water before it gets to that area? Maybe set up a concrete pit and run hoses off that, buried underground as you did with the drinking troughs... I'm certainly not an expert, but by the look of it, you are losing thousands of liters of water off your property and that is never a good thing.... I just had another thought (always a dangerous thing LOL) check around your area and see if another property is having a dam put in. If so, they will usually want to get rid of what has been excavated from the hole. That could then be used to build a dam but lower the cost to you... Just a thought.

[@lamebubblesflysohigh]

Good job, you saturated your land with water so much it cannot contain any more of it. I wouldn't do anything about it to be honest. Maybe I would dig a really small shallow pond put a trail camera nearby and enjoyed observing birds and other wildlife in the evening

[@FatCowFarmTatong]

Enjoying it for what it is maybe the way to go. The herons blow my mind when the come through. Last count was a flock of 27. They smash the frogs and left. More frogs have come back and its only a matter of time before the herons are back.

[@kdenyer1]

You could dig a pond where the spring is and set up a solar powered pump and pump it back to the top of the hill.😂

[@terrywood3711]

I see that the outflow is clean or clear so there is no loss of soils, which is good. Reading your landscape I can see that you have Rushes that have been of long standing - this in my opinion is the head of your Spring Outflow, the Rushes would'nt be there if there was no scource of long standing water for them. THE MUDDY WET GROUND IS THE OVERFLOW, NOT THE SCOURCE. You say that you have a dry Swale just over behind you, good. The situation being that you have water in one spot and want it in another spot. Let's not use the "B" word and spend money put in a "V" trench just below the Rushes put a bit of gravel in the bottom and fence off most of the "V" trench. Locate an Automatic Float Solar Pump in the deep part of the fenced off trench and lift the water over to the Dry Swale. I know that you've got a Pipe Laying Unit behind the tractor, and with the Solar Panel and the Pump inside the Fenced Off Area, things should be permanent. Put down some heavy Gravel Rock around the Unfenced Trench and use that as a Watering Point for Stock, the Rock Must be heavy enough to stop the animals churning up the ground around their drinking spot - the churned up ground should sort itself out over time. Don't give in to temptation and remove the Rushes, they have evolved to suit their circumstances. So you can evolve the situation to suit your circumstances.

[@Nic-kt6of]

Moving water is more powerful than stagnant water.. Just because the water is on your property doesn't means its having the most positive effect it can... Water has to flow... I'd channelize it by digging a brook and shaping it like a river... essentially a swale not on contour but with curves... instantly makes the soil more porous...

[@Nic-kt6of]

You'll also find that instead of water filling the brook by overland sheet flow that the water instantly drops into the soil and flows subsurfacely to the brook (this is how it becomes more porous right away)... This cools the water and makes its flow length infinitely longer (by the fractal nature of water/everything in general)

[@FatCowFarmTatong]

Interesting - I like the idea. cheers

[@HDB1974]

It looks like the water table is full and the hydrological pressure is forcing up springs. Seems to me like you have reached your objectives. You could, I suppose build a wide pond, deepish pond (on a high contour) as high up that paddock as you can to help spread the water across the paddock rather than allowing a long, narrowish flow to run down the paddock.