Also, drains and ditches around fields should be clean, large enough, and sloped enough so they can carry water away from the field in a short period of time. They vary in efficiency and cost. Base your selection on these factors, your field's topography, the soil's physical factors, labor costs, and on your management capabilities. This irrigation method requires levees that take away land area for production, take time to survey and construct, and take time to get out after the irrigation. Generally, levees are surveyed on elevations of no more than 0.4 foot.
Flood irrigation is very risky for a germination irrigation or irrigation of small beans.
Getting levees to hold water can be another problem with a flood system. Flood irrigation is typically 50 to 60 percent efficient. This system is a cross between flood and furrow irrigation and best fits straight levee rice fields or fields with no side slope. The border spacing is based on the well's flow rate and the length of the field. Most border systems are designed to move water through a bay in 12 to 24 hours maximum.