At Summer Roads, when designing our farm, water management is one of the first things we consider.  To do this we use keyline design which works on a landscape scale first.  You will notice our pastures and gardens are designed based on the slope of the land in mind as slope effects water flow.

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1. Keyline design spreads out, slows down, and captures water movement across a landscape. 

2. The design capturing water into our soils as high on the topographical landscape as possible.  This prevents mud in low laying spots that become over saturated.   It also increases water holding capacity over the whole landscape which increases drought resistance for plants as they have a supply of water stored in the ground even if hasn't rained recently. 

3. It also cleans water as it filters through the soil rather than running off the surface and washing into water ways, rivers, streams, and lakes without being cleaned first

4. Over time, this technique can also recharge ground water and downstream bodies of water with clean water, rather than the common concerns about farms depleting and polluting ground water