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Wine industry relies on water-witching
breitbart.com ^ | 12/31/12 | UPI

Posted on 12/31/2012 2:54:30 PM PST by ColdOne

Marc Mondavi, a California winery operator, has a new vocation, water-witching, and is called upon to find ground water for local wineries, using copper rods.

"You either have it or you don't," Mondavi, 58, says of the skill that takes him to neighboring vineyards in northern California to find places, without the aid of science, to dig industrial-size wells. "If you have it, you have to take time to develop it."

(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...


TOPICS: Agriculture; Gardening; Miscellaneous
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I have seen someone do this first hand. It does work.
1 posted on 12/31/2012 2:54:36 PM PST by ColdOne
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To: ColdOne

Did you ever hear of the water table?


2 posted on 12/31/2012 3:03:58 PM PST by BwanaNdege ("To learn who rules over you simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize"- Voltaire)
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To: ColdOne
The article explains why this is believed to 'work.'

"Some water exists under the Earth's surface almost everywhere. (bold not in original) This explains why many dowsers are successful," a statement from the U.S. Geological Survey says.

Otherwise there is no way that dowsing for water is any better than simply pointing to the ground anywhere, and drilling - that ultimately finds water.

I've also seen the dowsing process done by many others, and saw it fail, repeatedly.

3 posted on 12/31/2012 3:07:06 PM PST by Ron C.
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To: BwanaNdege

http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/water_dowsing/pdf/water_dowsing.pdf

“...The natural explanation of “successful” water dowsing is that in many areas water would be hard to miss. The dowser commonly implies that the spot indicated by the rod is the only one where water could be found, but this is not necessarily true. In a region of adequate rainfall and favorable geology, it is difficult not to drill and find water!

Some water exists under the Earth’s surface almost everywhere. This explains why many dowsers appear to be successful.”


4 posted on 12/31/2012 3:10:07 PM PST by BwanaNdege ("To learn who rules over you simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize"- Voltaire)
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To: Ron C.

You are a much faster poster than I!


5 posted on 12/31/2012 3:11:11 PM PST by BwanaNdege ("To learn who rules over you simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize"- Voltaire)
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To: ColdOne

They use willow here. Most well digging outfits seem to have one on staff. Whether it’s just for show or what, I don’t know, but every house I’ve ever lived in, the well sites were witched, dowsed, whatever. Even the “repair” site for an alternate well site on the plot plan. They didn’t ask me they just did it.


6 posted on 12/31/2012 3:12:51 PM PST by RegulatorCountry
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To: ColdOne

I can do this...as long as there aren’t any pipes in the way.


7 posted on 12/31/2012 3:22:29 PM PST by madison10
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To: Ron C.
I am a skeptic by nature but I have seen my late father locate water lines on properties by water witching.

He would use bent wires and he never made me did a hole where there was not a water line - and, as a teen, I really wanted him to fail.

Smug SOB!

8 posted on 12/31/2012 3:23:07 PM PST by Aevery_Freeman (The trouble with the "masses" is that they never achieve the "m")
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To: ColdOne
My buddy can do this very efficiently. I try and try...but stink at it.

We use it for cemetery reconstruction and have been very successful in finding blocks of graves.

This past year, we used Ground penetrating radar on one pioneer burial yard and checked it by witching.

9 posted on 12/31/2012 3:23:38 PM PST by Sacajaweau
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To: Aevery_Freeman

Never used branches. I use bent wire coat hangers, but haven’t actually had anyone DIG for water. The wires do cross, though...extremely.


10 posted on 12/31/2012 3:26:05 PM PST by madison10
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To: Ron C.

“Otherwise there is no way that dowsing for water is any better than simply pointing to the ground anywhere, and drilling”

I’ve run a public water supply for 30 years, and I have seen this done by two people. And it wasn’t for digging wells,, it was for finding lost water lines. I couldn’t find the lines, as my detector only does ferrous metals, and the lost lines were copper. One guy was 82, the other was 22. The old guy used willow branches, and had been in the well-drilling business for over 50 years. The young guy was a carpenter, and was just able to do it. He said his Dad and Grandfather could do it too. I think it might just be a “man thing.” Whenever a man over 40 visits my water plant, with all the water stored, and running through pipes, they always excuse themselves to go behind the shed and pee! Maybe it’s because we all have a sensitive short “pipe?”


11 posted on 12/31/2012 3:46:00 PM PST by Dr. Bogus Pachysandra ( Ya can't pick up a turd by the clean end!)
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To: ColdOne

When my kids were young, I’d often demonstrate this by having them hide a quarter in the grass of our 1/2 acre lawn, and I’d find it using a forked stick. I’d walk right to it...

Seems to me that it does work, and as an engineer, I have no idea why.


12 posted on 12/31/2012 3:52:58 PM PST by babygene ( .)
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To: ColdOne; greyfoxx39
Careful, you're messing with the occult.

Keep it up and you could wind up paying 15% tithing and being assigned 50 hours a week to get to heaven.

Water witchign and money digging were what FLDS/LDS "Prophet" Joseph Smith did for a living before he started his little cult.

13 posted on 12/31/2012 4:05:38 PM PST by SENTINEL (I lie, I cheat, I steal, I communize, I sacrifice unborn babies, I'm Harry Reid and I'm a mormon)
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To: ColdOne
I have seen someone do this first hand. It does work.

My neighbor handed me a Y shaped branch when I was a kid and son of a gun! We knew there was a water utilty pipe below and it nailed the location.

14 posted on 12/31/2012 4:06:13 PM PST by llevrok (ObamaLand - Where young people go to retire.)
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To: Dr. Bogus Pachysandra
LOL - sounds bogus to me, Dr. Bogus.

Well, I too ran into a guy a very long time ago in New Mexico that could find metal stuff underground. He used a string with a little ball of something tied to the end of it to find gold and other metals. I asked him what the little ball was, and he told me, 'Its a talisman made from an elk horn.' So I asked him how it worked and he told me it made the string vibrate just a tad when it went over metal.

I never saw him get very wealthy though - but I did meet another guy there that used a dry sluice with the great result of collecting a huge safe full of gold dust and nuggets over the years.

15 posted on 12/31/2012 4:08:42 PM PST by Ron C.
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To: ColdOne

I did it a few times when I was a kid. Really a weird feeling, using a willow switch, and have that downward tugging keep occuring at the same particular spots. Didn’t seem to work for anybody else around me. But when my grandfather hired an old gent to witch for a place to dig a well, it led to those very same spots that I felt the tugging the day before. Quirky.


16 posted on 12/31/2012 4:10:19 PM PST by greene66
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To: Sacajaweau
I ran a backhoe up North in my high-school summers. My Uncle used to water-witch with a forked branch for the local well driller. He said any type of tree branch would work for him as long as it bear a fruit with a stone (cherry, peach, plum..).

I was very skeptical and similarly thought you'd get water nearly anywhere you drill. At one job, my uncle told them where to to drill, they'd get water at 18-20' but not much and at 50' there would be good water. Exactly 20' there was a poor vein and (he missed it) at 55' there was a perfect supply.

I'm a believer.

17 posted on 12/31/2012 4:13:25 PM PST by Damifino (The true measure of a man is found in what he would do if he knew no one would ever find out.)
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To: SENTINEL

It’s not occult. It’s magnetic lines of force. Just because you cant see it with your eyes doesn’t mean it’s the debil.


18 posted on 12/31/2012 4:16:30 PM PST by rawcatslyentist ("Behold, I am against you, O arrogant one," Jeremiah 50:31)
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To: Ron C.

“’Its a talisman made from an elk horn.’ So I asked him how it worked and he told me it made the string vibrate just a tad when it went over metal.”

That’s interesting! But i’d bet it was him, more than the talisman, that detected metals.


19 posted on 12/31/2012 4:41:29 PM PST by Dr. Bogus Pachysandra ( Ya can't pick up a turd by the clean end!)
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To: ColdOne

When I ws a kid I worked at a filling station. We had to find the water line so we had an old guy come and witch it. He marked it and we got a backhoe in and found the line right off the bat. I’m a believer .


20 posted on 12/31/2012 4:58:24 PM PST by Lurkina.n.Learnin (Superciliousness is the essence of Obama)
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