Draining gets underway in Spain

Saturday 08, May 2010

We've embarked on a pioneering overseas project based in the Costa Collida region near Murcia in South Eastern Spain.

The project will see agricultural land drainage work taking place in the region with 100 acres of land due to be drained this spring time for the very first time.  The decision to carry out this ground breaking project comes off the back of exceptional winter rainfalls in Spain with over 10 inches of rain falling on saturated ground in just one day in September.

Southern Spain, which is widely known for its dry and arid climate, is an important region for the production of salad and vegetable crops.  It provides the UK and other European supermarkets with a constant supply of fresh produce through the colder winter months when the harsher climates of Northern Europe mean that fresh produce production is not possible on a local level.

The winter’s wet ground conditions in Spain have meant that the harvesting of salad crops has been hugely problematic with serious damage to the valuable soil structures.  This has occurred through large harvesting equipment being on the land too soon after the rains, as the growers out there do their best to try and meet the demands of the supermarkets in spite of the poor ground conditions.

The implementation of land drains into the soil structures will allow the soils to recover and dry out more quickly following heavy rains and this in turn will allow harvesting operations to recommence more rapidly.  This will provide even greater reliability in ensuring that fresh produce can arrive on supermarket shelves back in the UK as and when the demand is there.

We are carrying out the work with our own fleet of hi-tech equipment and team of specialist staff who have travelled out from the UK to Spain this May.  The work involves the installation of over 20kms of new underground drainage pipes and has required a lot of preliminary planning to ensure the vast network of existing underground irrigation pipes are avoided by the trenching machine as it crunches through the soils installing the new pipework.