6 March 2024
There is always a way to make holes in hard ground, even if you all you have are a Dodge bakkie differential, an old road scraper blade, a tractor and the ability to weld.
As farmers increasingly struggle to revive weakened fields on their land, they are coming up with the smartest plans and tools.
Hollows or pits are a recognised method of trapping water, seeds and organic material on bare ground to aid plant establishment and field restoration. (Read more about this here.)
So far, farmers have mostly used labourers with picks and shovels, backhoes or spot ploughs to dig the holes. However, Stoffel Visagie, a Dorper farmer from the farm Dwaalhoek near Strydenburg in the Northern Cape, built a ground drill to dig holes to get coverage on his land to lower temperatures and limit evaporation.
The other known methods all had disadvantages. Fortunately, Visagie enjoys working with his hands and he used the differential from an old Dodge D100 bakkie, pieces of a road scraper blade and steel to build a field drill powered by an old 60 hp (44 kW) tractor’s power take-off (PTO) to bore neat, round holes.
The holes Visagie’s workers made on bare patches of veld are 80 cm in diameter and 15-20 cm deep. Each one can hold 100 litres of water. Normally, rainwater does not penetrate deeper than 2 cm into the ground on bare patches of veld, but in the holes he could push a shovel 30 cm into the ground after rain.
He drilled the holes in October 2020, when the drought was at its peak. When it started raining in 2021, he could see if his plan worked. The farm received 690 mm of rain from September 2021 to August 2022. This is more than double its long-term average and gave the plant establishment process a good start.
‘A lengthy process’ but it works
Visagie says making holes with the machine is time-consuming. “You have to stop and take the tractor out of gear, let the drill turn, lift it up and move it forward, and repeat the process.”
He has not calculated the cost of the operation but the advantage is that he can drill holes on the smallest bare patches – something he could not do with a backhoe.
Time will also tell how quickly the holes close. He believes plant establishment will also work in years when rainfall is average and below-average.
Klossie grass grows first
The first plant to establish itself after the rain was klossie grass. Over time, it was replaced by more permanent plants. “The holes were full of plant material after the first year, and now other plants are also coming up.”
Photos taken by Visagie on February 26 show Karoo bushes such as Pentzia and Salsola species, old man saltbush (Atriplex nummularia), saltbush (Psilocaulon absimile) and pioneer grass species established in the holes.
Visagie has been improving his land in various ways for more than 40 years. He started making furrows, but they soon closed up and erosion started again. He later worked with a spot plough and sowed saltbush seed. Another plan was to dig holes with a backhoe, but the machine struggled to penetrate the hard ground.
State once helped
After obtaining an agricultural diploma at Grootfontein College of Agriculture, Visagie started farming at Dwaalhoek in 1981. His veld’s condition was poor compared to that of his neighbours, and he resolved to leave his farm in a better condition, even if he died a poor man.
Those years saw the state involved in land improvement and soil conservation in the Karoo, and expert advisers, soil conservation committees and subsidies supported farmers. This is no longer the case.
Inquiries: Stoffel Visagie, stoffelvisagie58@gmail.com.
