Jones Concrete

This post will cover some of the equipment currently and previously used to construct ditches over the decades.

The first things to cover, are the trenchers! Below are the trenchers used for ditches and small canals. Both of these trenchers were old at the time this picture was taken and are still in service today.

Previously, we used an army truck with wench on the back to pull the ‘boat’ or slip-forms along the ditch. This truck broke down in recent years and has been replaced with the backhoe and bulldozer.

The equipment needs to travel from our shop to your field. This semi-truck provided decades of service of transporting trenchers, backhoes, and bulldozers. It has been retired. An additional backhoe has been picked up, though the backhoe shown below still serves us today as well.

The bulldozer is used to build the pad and smooth out dug-up dirt. But mostly, it is just a lot of fun to drive!

Gamaco is a brand name for a machine that specializes in slip-forming. These are often seen during freeway road construction.

That’s all for this post, we’ll have more action shots in the next posts.

While out reviewing ditches with my father, I came across this interesting ditch. What makes it interesting is that in a relatively short distance, it transitions through many different flow types.

The source of the water is a canal on the other side of the road. It is brought through a culvert and runs out on a channel on a steep slope. The flow begins at about critical depth and draws down toward normal depth. I didn’t take any measurements and so I’m not performing any computations to determine whether it reached normal depth or not. Close to the slope change, the flow creates a hydraulic jump to get past critical depth and backs up to a depth greater than normal depth. The water is backed up by a weir gate so the flow can be accurately measured. The water drops of the sharp-crested weir where it has another hydraulic jump to draw toward normal depth. The water begins in S2 and depending on where the jump occurs, goes to M3, M2, and then M1, back down to M3, and stabilizing to M2.

That’s a lot of change for a simple irrigation ditch.

#FlowProfiles #Ditch #Channel #Irrigation @HydraulicJumps #EJJE #JonesConcrete

Just finishing up a project that the client said cut his watering time from 30 hours to 18 hours. One field went from 9 hours to 3 hours, and another 6 hours to 3 hours. Time, money, and water all saved by replacing an aging concrete irrigation ditch.

The client also received funding assistance from the NRCS.

#Water #Farming #Irrigation #Ditch #Channel #JonesConcrete #EJJE