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Welcome to our Farming & Water Scotland podcast series. Over this series we're

looking at various mitigation options, guidance and farmer's experience to help

manage and improve water quality on farm and surrounding area.

You can listen back to all previous episodes in this series and other

podcasts we produce for Farming & Water Scotland on any

podcast provider. Today we're focusing on

management of clean and dirty water on Farm. I'm Fiona Salter, Environmental

Consultant for SAC Consulting and host for today's podcast.

Today we're joined by Jackie McColm who works at SEPA as a specialist in the

National Rural team and Robert Ramsey who is a farming advisor

for SAC Consulting and a farmer based in Ayrshire. Thank you both for joining.

Hi, Fiona. Hello. Jackie, first, could you please define the terms

clean water and dirty water on farm and basically what

we mean when we're discussing it

So Clean Water is basically the rain water that's fallen onto the clean

parts of the steading. So, it's the water that doesn't become contaminated...

so roof water, water falling onto clean yards. It becomes

dirty water once it's contaminated, so falling onto areas like

open silage camps, open slurry stores,

handling yards anywhere, basically stock or animal excreta that then becomes

dirty water, which has to be contained and collected in the farm slurry storage system.

And obviously, how can farmers ensure that they're separating clean and dirty waters

on farm correctly?

So the best thing is to handle its source, best you can.

So, key thing for roofs making sure that there's no big gaping in holes in

roofs, making that roofs are fitted with gutters and downpipes that are

connected and working. You can utilise round about the

steading, so using small cut-off drains or things like sleeping

policemen to keep the clean water away from areas where it's likely to get

contaminated.

And what farmers do with the

clean and/or dirty water on farm?

So clean water, you could potentially

store that up. It could be used for possibly washing down areas,

to cut down on maybe the mains water that needs to be used. It could potentially be

treated in some cases and used for water and stock,

but the contaminated water does have to be collected.

There is an option for what's defined as lightly contaminated water. So, for example,

the runoff from a silage pit, once the pit's open and is been used for

feeding the stock and provided nothing else will be used. That runoff can actually go

to a constructed farm, wetland, as can the runoff from middens,

so effectively, it can go to another system so that it's not impact

on available slurry storage, so you're maximising the capacity, you're

no collating the water that you don't have to collect.

And that kind of falls into, obviously slurry stores. What

can farmers do to reduce like rainwater going into slurry stores, or less say,

going to constructed farm, wetland and things like that, and other options?

The only real option you've got is to consider covering your stores.

If you're planning a new store, it's worth thinking about, obviously,

a lagoon has got a much bigger surface area than say a tower.

So you're therefore collecting a larger volume of clean water into that lagoon.

However, you don't collect as much as rainwater, so you're maximising the

effective capacity better. But obviously there's cost implications, but it's just

things to consider, but unfortunately, we can do anything about the rain, so

really covers are the only option to think about when it comes to a slurry store.

I think on that one though, Jackie, there is the option

they, for me, they are covering the stores like the final solution.

That's the final point we should be looking at. It's all those other

steading things that if we start looking at the cost of covering a store it's

it's not it's not horrific but it's a big cost whereas if we go around the rest

of the steading as you were saying about downpipes and gutters and sleeping

policemen, things are so many potential savings on most farms

that we can probably save the equivalent of the dirty water hitting the top of the store,

by finding all the cheap things that we can do round about the steading

and the net effect for storage is the same.

Totally agree. The amount of farms you're go into

and it could be just be something simple like the gutters are blocked,

so the rains come in say they're coming down the down pipe and down the drain and away.

It's it's overspilling and it's therefore going on yards that then becomes contaminated

And as you say, Robert ends up in the slurry store.

So absolutely, better to tackle the source,

taking the time, even checking that the drainage systems are operating,

this should be. There's nothing leaking, there is no any blockage,

and just checking on those basics and putting in separation where you can't,

put it in recut channels or the sleeping policemen to divert,

you know, get the clean water away from those areas where it's going to end up

having to go into the store, because once you've got it in the store,

it's basically clean water that your business is having to pay to handle and spread.

Yeah, and that's a killer. You know,

remember Adrian Jones years ago were saying that every, every cube of water we pump was a pound,

and it's bound to be way more than that now, with labour, diesel and all sorts, depreciation.

Those needless cubes of water going in are tricky.

And I think the lagoon reference, we talk about lagoon's a lot in terms of,

that the Achilles heel of a Lagoon, is the amount of dirty water they catch.

But if they're also catching half the yard as well,

or the concrete at the top of them is graded their own way,

so it runs in, you know, there's a lot of ways we can,

we can make savings. My favourite at the moment is,

you know, I think one of the best things a lot of guys can buy is a bucket brush and just,

you know, a farm bit tidier. You know, if we've got, like,

a handling system area, if you've got a, you're a beef and sheep farmers

collecting yard that's outside needs collected, no doubt about it,

it's day and night use.

If you've got a set of handling pens that are used maybe once every six weeks or once every two

months. Brush it up, brush it up, keep it tidy, keep it clean, and then we'll have a,

we'll probably have a grey water story. Now, it's not, a dirty water story,

but there's so many things we can do that just, if we can, if something's easy to do, it gets done.

And if it's awkward, it doesn't.

Actually, I'm even thinking about the whole set up of the way the stock has moved in the farm,

could access be re-routed? Could you reduce the amount of the area that's going to be dirty

to some of the, like, open yard areas do the need to be as big as they are, where can you make those

reductions? So, yeah, totally agree. Then, covering should be your last option, because it's a costly option.

Yeah, however, if it is, I mean my dream is from my outside cattle pens to get a roof over them.

Someday that's going to happen, not just to do with dirty water, nothing to do with SEPA,

but just to do a me fed up being wet. (laughing)

Yeah, roofing, we are possible is the, as a key thing. Yeah.

Reducing that area that has to end up going in your slurry store.

And then, just discussing water management on your whole farm. What other tricks can be there to

reduce water that farmers have to deal with throughout the whole farm?

It can be simple things, like, even that the type of a, a wash down you do, you know, use a pressure

washer, think about on-hoses, put a trigger system on so that when the hoses lay down, it's not being used,

you're, you're stopping the water flow.

I think one, certainly in the dairy is when it comes to, and this is not rocket science,

but it's recycling water as well as, you know, if you've got water going through a plate cooler,

do something else with it and get two, you know, if you use a cube of water to cool,

cool milk and you can use the same cube water to water stock, you have a cube less going in the

store down the line, so you, and you also have the benefits of hot water for drinking or washed down

or whatever, so, there are, it's just recycling, probably there's a lot of financial efficiency

stuff in this as well, that if we can, if we can use, if we can optimise a use of water,

we're going to be financially better off as well. It's not as clear a cut, maybe, as some of the

carbon savings and things that are out and out, cash savings, but certainly in around dairy farms,

there are, water savings that can be made that ultimately reduce the slurry,

slurry storage requirements and make you a bit more money too, so I think recycling and thinking

about what we're doing is probably the low-hanging fruit. Yeah, another one, as I see quite often,

maybe if there's troughs on the steading and water troughs that are overflowing or leaking,

that can be a big one, so just looking, you know, fixing those, don't let them go,

and fixing them straight away. Dripping taps, getting them fixed, because all that's creating.

And then even in the areas where you do have to be collecting and you've got channels there,

make sure those channels are kept free from obstruction, because as soon as they become blocked,

then the water's not going where you need it to go and ultimately it's going to end up something else

you have to collect. So just, like I say, making sure, just the maintenance, the keeping things clear,

checking those types of things you maybe don't think about. And I think you're dead right, Jackie,

the thing that's just a drip, you put a pail in below it, you're not long and filling a pail,

and if you leave the pail, you know, over six months, you can put two or three inches in your store.

From just a drip. That's right, it tends to be one of those jobs - we'll get to it, we'll get to it, you never get to it.

Yeah, there's one, we often have the conversation, slurry management is a different conversation

to slurry storage, you know, storing it is hold onto it, not spreading it through the winter.

Managing it obviously, when it comes to the spring, or when it comes to when we're actually trying to apply it,

we, you know, we now apply through dribble bars, which are widely working well, there are some issues,

here and there with different systems. The systems that have the issues are the ones that have got the

driest slurry. So obviously those, those systems needed to have some water incorporated into them,

but what I would say on that is, why would we start incorporating that water in October,

not knowing when the spring is going to be? Obviously, hauling water and, you know, tanker loads of water

and then spending days pumping and mixing, that's not ideal either, but I think we need to have,

if we've got a system like that, then need some rainwater going into it, having the ability to put the

rainwater in and then also see no rainwater just now, exclude it just now, because that's, when Jackie

comes to see you, you know, hopefully that, well, hopefully, Jackie's good, so hopefully that does happen,

you'll really enjoy it. (laughing) If you get a SEPA visit, they want to know about what your storage capacity

is and how it works. It's not to say you can't do this or you can't do, there's a lot of things you can't do,

but certainly excluding and including water is allowed, it's encouraged, it's creating a system that

works well for you is what it's all about. But having control of it is just, if we get, we've had

the horrific level of rainfall in the last few weeks, if we get the same in the first two or three

months of the winter and you end up, storing, you know, hundreds of thousands of gallons of extra water,

we don't need at that point in the year, it reduces the amount of actual dung that we can store in the

in the slurry system.

That's right, and we're getting to a point where, you know, it's coming in,

everyone's going to have to provide 22 weeks, slurry storage, so some people will be able to achieve

that just by making these differences, cutting out the amount of water they're collecting, so it is

key that people start thinking about it now, and like Robert says, I appreciate a lot of the time

you do need to add a bit of water, but even on a sear roof downpipe, have it fixed that you could divert it

into the system when you need it, but when you don't need it, it's going away with the rest of the

clean water, so things like that that can be put in place fairly cheaply.

So I suppose that falls nicely, it's like obviously, the past few years we have

had periods of heavy rainfall that farmers are having to deal with. How do farmers cope with that

influx of water and maintaining the clean and dirty water separation on farm safely and ensure that

it's separated?

I think just having the things in place that we've spoke about, so that when you do

get those events, you're hopefully not being too overrun. Maintenance it is, it's just keeping on

checking things, doing the maintenance when you can so that especially because even during the

summer, some of the rainfall events we get, they are very, very intense and you can get an immediate

downpour, so I think covering some of the things that we've spoken about and making sure you've got

this separation at the point you need it. For example, if you've maybe got a track or a slope above the

steading and coming on, you don't want a sheet flow of water coming in there. Can you divert that away

so that it's going on in some of the fields or away from what's going to effectively end up in your

slurry store or in an effluent tank?

I think when we're doing it, we're thinking about changing

steadings and putting in a sleeping policeman, we're re-grading concrete, it's about thinking it's not

it's not planning for the day that you get 10 mm of rain steady, it's about planning for the day that you

get three inches of rain and actually making these things extreme enough that even when it is,

a fairly extreme weather event, it still works. It's planning for it, we're going to have more

extremes, we're seeing that, we get enough extremes as it is, but the climate change wise is going

to be more extremes and happily there will be extreme hot and dry again at some stage which will be

nice.

Dry, what is that? (laughter)

But if we're spending the money to get this right, let's make sure it's right all the time

and we will also, there's the once in one in five hundred year floods and that sort of thing. It's very hard

to prepare for them, or very costly to prepare for them, but for the twice a year flood of rain,

let's make sure that what's being put on the ground is fit to deal with them and actually if it is,

it means the problem that you get down the line from that event is much less because it's not

filled your slats, it's not in the parlour pit, it's not, you know, you've got a defined edge and

you've sent it another way. And I suppose other things if you put in a drain and if it's a four inch

drain that was there, let's make it a six inch pipe, you know, things like that just bulk everything

up a bit. And the best designed planned out systems are the ones that will perform the best.

I think that's just it, a bit of thought, a bit of planning and a bit of contingency, built in, because

because unfortunately the one thing we can't even control is the weather.

I think another thing to think about is, speak to people, you know, if you're looking at making

changes and these changes aren't, we're not, I'm not talking about a £50,000 investment, say,

this is relatively small scale things, but if you're looking at doing things, speak to a friend,

speak to a neighbour, speak to a worker, somebody different who's got a fresh set of eyes to look at the

problem, discuss the problem, bounce some ideas about and make sure that what you're doing, there isn't

easier way, a better way, a cheaper way of doing it.

That's right, and what works on one farm,

might not necessarily work on the next, you know, it's got to be site specific and right for how

how that, your own farm is set up, but definitely speak to people, yeah, some of the best, some of the

best ideas just come from, you know, someone's done one thing and it's worked really well, so,

yeah, I agree with what, Robert's saying.

And then obviously the clean water we talked about this

before, but with reduce, reuse and recycling water, the recycling of water to use, because if we're

talking about extreme weather, collecting your clean water to be used when you need it, so if we talk

about the other extreme when we don't have water, so like we're talking about like rainwater harvesters

or storage lagoons for water. Ponds putting in sustainable, like urban drainage systems,

what can farmers do, because obviously these things all cost money,

as well as talking to people who have installed them as well, but what, how can farmers approach using

these different mitigation options to store their water to use when they need it and help

utilise and reuse a water source?

Well, one of the big things we've seen in the last couple of years is

more like crop producers or veg growers that are relying on irrigation during the growing season.

And in the last few years, we've certainly had cases where we've been in a water scarcity situation,

and if they're in the habit of having a license and abstracting and from a nearby river,

say, SEPA have had no option, but to in some cases suspend those irrigations, so certainly

we are saying to people, do you know, think about these water storage lagoons so that when you've got

the excess of the rainwater, store it, and it's there for when you need it, and you know, the next

season during growing, if there is a risk of the water in the river systems isn't available,

you've got a backup plan, you've got an option there.

Yeah, and on the smaller scale in the livestock farm,

you know, probably for most of my guys in the West, any rainwater harvests that we're doing is actually

used and turned over pretty quick. You know, we've got a good supply of rain, and it's maybe basically trying to

try to reduce the how quickly the water meter goes round here, reducing the cost.

It's amazing what you can do when IBC or an old milk tank or, you know, an old artic tanker or even a washed

out slurry tanker, you know, there's lots we can do with what we've got lying about in terms of

catching water. As I say, that's not going to help much in a big drought, you know, that situation is

more about a kind of day-to-day handling of the water we've got, but yeah, there's some really good

wee systems out there for, you know, working the volume washer and a that type of thing, and it's

amazing what a big roof on a dairy shed, you know, you can wash up a big area every day with even a

modest rainfall on the top of a big dairy shed. The important bit to think though is, when it comes

to watering, livestock is using using that a roof water for watering usually young stock. We have to be

really aware of the fecal contamination from birds and it's a real risk, it's not a potential risk,

it's a real risk. So that water needs to go through a UV filter, not a big job, not a big cost,

something we need to do, but aye, certainly, when we get to that stage it's worth taking a bit of advice,

you know, doing a bit of reading, taking a bit of advice as to how to do run those systems properly.

But that's of using it for livestock?

Yes, yeah, yeah. You don't put it through a UV

filter if you're going to fling it about your parlour for washing .

Would, just if you were planning, if you had enough of it to use for crops,

does that need to go through a UV filter?

Eh, no, no I don't think so?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no,

Just livestock?

No, it'll be fine for crop use, but then you probably want to put it through a

particle filter because your a sprayer probably won't like too much other stuff going through it, so

yeah, it's certainly worth asking the question to people, probably people who've done it,

there's plenty of folk who've done it, go and see a few systems and things.

We've got Farming and Water Scotland, there's a few examples on the website and things as well that

there's resources and people to speak to, so yeah, ask questions and see if it's an option.

And then looking at the water management on the farm as a whole, what other key, I'm just going to

call it, there are lots of different areas, but for this podcast time, what kind of key pinpoint

areas should farmers focus attention to make sure that water is reduced, reused and recycled,

and( I quite like that) on farm and ensure that water quality is maintained and improved?

So for me, I think the water edge is the most important bit, so the water margin area,

if we can get it right, I'm not saying we can do whatever we like in the rest of the field,

but if we can get that area right, it can cure a lot of ills, so in terms of runoff and

leaching, you know, we've got a buffer area, a fenced off buffer area that can catch sediment,

and can also utilise excess nutrient, so the fine stuff, water margin for me is probably the most

powerful environmental measure we can take on a livestock farm, is to fence off that

by meter strip or even two meter strip. Also, happily, it's a really good biodiversity story,

you know, it's the area that's probably, I know on my farm at home, it's probably the area that's

of least used to me and most cause of the most hassle, fence it off, and it suddenly becomes a

rewilded biodiversity paradise that, you know, we are going to be rewarded for going forward,

so there's lots of things at play here, but I certainly think that on a field scale, that water margin

story's colossal.

Yeah, that's what you need, say for, you know, reducing the risk of the

pollution from the farm, which is effectively rainfall driven pollution. So like say, if the

cattle are watering, you know, from the burn, you're going to get poached areas that will become worse

with the rainfall driven, so it's even thinking about where trough are sited, you know, the areas at the

cattle are congregating. You don't want the runoff from that area being able to access a burn, so just

thinking about where they're sited, if cattle do congregate along a water margin, why are they congregating

in there, is it because they are that source of the water, or is it more, it's and area to go for a

bit of shelter or shade? So it's just thinking of the reasons at play and seeing what you can do to

mitigate against that.

One of my favourite things is the alternative watering stuff too, so that

getting a different source of water, if you can't afford it is not practical to fence off the

the burn itself, we don't have to do that, we're just not allowed to significantly poach it. But

often if you provide an alternative source of water, you reduce the pressure that's on the water

course as well, and there's, we could talk all day about all the different options that we've got for

alternative watering, but certainly those are worth having a look at to see what your options are

for, taking the thing forward.

Yeah, I would agree with that, and it can be something

that's easy and cheap as just a basic gravity feed, let gravity do the job for you before you're

there into the different types, say, pumping systems.

Your first place should be means water and

your second place should be a gravity feed system, and thereafter we have to go into pumps and

expense. But most people, if we get ahead outside the box, we'll be able to sort out some kind of

gravity fed system, even drawing it from the river.

And then moving away from the edge of the field,

what can farmers do throughout the year to ensure, one healthier soils and, two manage water and farm?

Thinking about, you really don't want to be in a situation where you're losing the soil during

wet weather events running off into a burn, because as well as losing the farms, key thing, which is

soil, it's thinking about what's in that soil? So the nutrients that are linked into that soil,

pesticides that are possibly in that soil, we don't want them washing off. So as well as having

adequate buffer strips along the margins, which Roburt said, it's thinking about, maybe,

undersowing or using cover crops, so that you don't have a period of time where you've got bare soils.

Even thinking, you know, along lines, if we had the tram lines go, are they going in the best

direction? Can they go across the field rather than up and down a slope? They can be, you know,

grubbed up a wee bit so that you've no got a sheat of water running down them in these wet weather

events. So there's things that can be done to protect the soil loss, but it shouldn't turn then,

protects the water quality and reduces the risk of pollution and, you know, somebody let myself

turning up in the farm.

You don't want that. (Laughter)

The cover crop thing, I think, is really interesting because, you know, 2015 was our first, everyone's first

experienced a BPS in greening, so we had to, a lot of arable guys had to put in some cover crops.

And most arable, not all, but most arable farmers were kicking and screaming, didn't want to do it,

didn't see the value. We didn't really see the value, to be honest. We knew the principles,

we didn't really see the value in it. Now, the majority of arable guys we are dealing with

will be incorporating a lot of green cover, none to do with subsidy, and it's to do a regen

principles, it's to do a basically farming better, better understanding of soils, better understanding

of our impacts and soils. And there's a lot of things happening now, like, you know, you mentioned

tram lines Jackie, and it's a really good point. But as a non-able farmer here, I look at my

contractor, driving a tractor, sitting in a tractor that's being driven by a satellite, you know,

it's GPS, auto steer, you can put it basically to, you know, an inch of where, you know, the tolerance is

so small, like, the tractor is perfectly, but it should be... do we still need tram lines?

You know, particularly those ones on, on, I know what they're for, we know, we know, they've got a real

purpose in terms of fuel positioning and control traffic, but we can do that without a tram line

now, so I know some people are moving away from them. Obviously, we're not going to yield a lot more

from that, you know, you're still going to have to run it down, but having something growing in that

tram line area is a big benefit to stop that, that gulleying and rutting, and because again,

from the farmer perspective, it's bad and environmentally, but it's also really bad, financially and really bad,

even practically from, you know, sorting out those fields. There was a lot of bad winter crops

within last year, or winter crops within a really bad conditions, and there was soil and roads,

there was gullying, there was all sorts of problems, particularly in... Scotland, did okay, but the

northeast England really struggled last year, and we need to learn from these things. We need to get,

you know, I see an amazing improvement in what farmers do in the last 15, 20 years,

but we've got a bit to go yet, you know, this progress that can still be made, and

happily most things now are probably very focused on soils. It's quite fashionable to talk about

soil health and actually value the soil that we've got, and that really plays into your hands,

Jackie, from an environmental perspective that people are beginning to value what they've got.

Yep, totally agree. You could do a whole other podcast on the soil topic,

trust me. But again, what everything else was spoke about in the steading, and it's the planning,

it's having those, so that those measures are in place, from the way that it's, we've got those

already there, so it's all about thinking ahead and planning ahead.

And there's a list of a million

and one options, find the ones that work for you.

Thank you, Jackie and Robert for joining us today. It's been really interesting discussion,

and thank you for joining us today. We'll save all links to documents and guides and

notes that have been discussed out this podcast episode on the webpage. If you've enjoyed

listening, please like, subscribe and follow our podcast wherever you listen to them. Please

get in touch if you want to find out more. Farming, and Water Scotland is funded by the Scottish Government

and delivered by SAC Consulting in partnership with SEPA to help farmers and land managers

reduce diffuse pollution risk and benefit of the farm business.

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