On January 23 & 24, the California Irrigation Institute (CII) will be presenting its 2014 conference on “Building a Water and Energy Efficient California.” The conference is the CII’s 52nd annual conference and is a great place to join colleagues, speakers, and exhibitors as we look to improve California’s water and energy efficiency. To register or learn more, visit caii.org.
The University of California (UC)-Davis, is Number 1 in the world for teaching and research in the area of agriculture and forestry, according to rankings released by QS World University Rankings.
This is the first year that the organization — which provides annual rankings in 29 other subject areas — has produced rankings in agriculture and forestry. Click here to see the entire top ranking list, or
The Toro Company today announced that Shannon Ranch Elementary School, in Visalia, CA, won top prize in the company’s ‘Ready. Set. GROW!’ grant program. As a result of the public vote, a $7,000 grant will be awarded to Shannon Ranch Elementary. The grant will enable the school to enhance their life sciences program including installing a water-efficient drip irrigation system at their school garden for use by students throughout the year. The garden will also serve as a model on smart irrigation practices for the surrounding community.
Upon receiving the news, Principal Samantha Tate said, “We appreciate the opportunity Toro has provided Shannon Ranch through the ‘Ready. Set. GROW!’ grant. We envision our school garden as being an essential component of our life sciences programs, kindergarten through the sixth grade. To have the opportunity to teach our students about the importance of agriculture in education, and how our garden can benefit our school community, is an incredible gift!”
A 40-year-old irrigation technology is seeing newly realized yield value as drought conditions, economic factors and resource scarcity issues intensify.
Initially adopted by U.S. vegetable, fruit and nut farmers in the 1960s and 1970s, subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) technology has rapidly advanced in the last two decades and continues to gain precision agriculture momentum.
Today’s SDI systems apply slow, frequent applications of water into soil and surrounding plant root zones through a system of driplines and emitters buried 10 to 18 inches below ground. SDI systems are well suited to support crop production in arid, semi-arid, hot and windy growing conditions such as those experienced by farmers in the High Plains states.
Lonnie Bohn and Don Blaschko installed a Toro SDI system on a 53-acre field four years ago and have seen higher yields due to increased water efficiency. “We started to look at the drip system because of the lower pressure and absolute efficiency. None of the water runs off,” Bohn says. “It’s all underground, so there is no evaporation.”
Ann Johnson grows wine grapes in El Dorado County, Calif., where she carefully uses each drop of water. Water is imperative to her operation, and using it wisely and keeping it clean are important to private landowners like her.
Conservation practices, like a drip irrigation system, help her care for this natural resource. A public television series, “This American Land,” will showcase Johnson and other California farmers and ranchers who are working with USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to put conservation on the ground.
Irrigation efficiency is the key to extending the life of the Ogallala Aquifer. If current irrigation trends continue, 69 percent of the available groundwater in the aquifer will be drained in the next 50 years, according to a four-year study done by researchers at Kansas State University.
The Ogallala Aquifer, which is part of the High Plains Aquifer system, is vitally important to Great Plains agriculture. About 27 percent of the irrigated land in the United States sits on top of the aquifer, which provides about 30 percent of the groundwater used for irrigation in the U.S.
Subsurface drip irrigation is one way to use irrigation water more efficiently.
Three years ago, Carol Huether, decided it was time to change careers and reinvent herself. So, she took her years of experience managing other people’s businesses and turned those skills into a successful organic vegetable and herb farm in Spring Creek, Nev.
As she transformed her 10 acres into a productive operation, Huether wasn’t working alone. USDA agencies, such as the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Farm Service Agency (FSA), worked closely with Huether to create a sustainable operation, despite the region’s challenging climate.
“I wouldn’t have been able to even start this kind of operation if it hadn’t been for all the agencies coming together to help me under the umbrella of the USDA,” Huether says.
Standing Pine Nursery is growing flowers – and its profit margin – by experimenting with an irrigation system designed for field crops. The low pressure drip irrigation system helped increase the nursery’s efficiency and sustainability by reducing labor demands and water usage.
This past summer, Geoff Denny, who is an assistant Extension professor of horticulture in Mississippi State University’s Department of Plant and Soil Sciences and a few horticulture students installed a small test of the system at the Raymond nursery. Denny modified the system especially for potted plant crops and installed it on part of this year’s mum crop. The test system is now being used on one greenhouse of poinsettias.
Nursery owner, Jody Ogletree, is pleased with the results and plans to expand the system next year. “The drip irrigation system is a gigantic labor- and time-saver,” Ogletree said. “In this business, labor is the biggest expense. While we can’t eliminate labor by using this system, we can free up our employees to do other tasks, such as pulling an order or cleaning foliage.”
One of our drip irrigation experts recently wrote an article for Progressive Forage Grower magazine about subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) for alfalfa and other field crops. The article introduces the origins and benefits of SDI, compares SDI to other irrigation technologies (such as gravity, sprinkler, and pivot irrigation), and presents recent SDI case studies.
For the full article, click here to