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Category: Drip Irrigation News

Drip Irrigation Trial on Potatoes

Once upon a time, no one thought the center pivot would work, mentioned an old Valley farmer leaving the Drip Irrigation Field Day earlier this month.

Producers gathered in both Roger Christensen and Dennis Beiriger’s experimental drip irrigation potato fields to see what happens when a tuber is watered under a controlled irrigation system installed underground. The Colorado Potato Administrative Committee (CPAC) and Rio Grande Roundtable sponsored trial proved Valley crops will grow using the system that delivers water and nutrients directly to the crop’s root and is used in many forms on an international scale, but it still needs a bit of tinkering.

Beiriger and his brothers have turned a small portion their fourth-generation family farm in Hooper into a drip tape demonstration project to prove the benefits of a drip system over a pivot system in a drought-stricken environment.

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Campbell’s Turns to Drip Irrigation to Grow More Tomatoes with Less Water

Water prices, water rights, drip irrigation, and last year’s dry winter are common topics of conversation for California growers. All have a common thread – the days of cheap limitless water supplies in California are fast approaching their end, and in districts further south in the Central Valley, are already here.

The folks at Campbell Soup know this. Which is why the company set goals last year to reduce water and fertilizer use by 20 percent per pound of tomatoes by 2020. This is on top of a 50 percent water reduction goal for its manufacturing plants.

One especially promising strategy is replacing sprinklers or furrow irrigation with drip irrigation. Though it costs about $1,000 per acre to install the drip system underground, the benefits are obvious. In addition to cutting water use by roughly 10 percent, it saves on fertilizer and helps farmers boost their tomato yields.

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Agriculture Industry Needs To Do A Better Job “Telling its Story”

All too often, the general public still thinks of farmers as wearing overalls and using very simple practices to grow crops when quite the opposite is true, says Rob Atchley, general manager of citrus groves for Florida and Texas for A. Duda & Sons Inc., LaBelle.

To help bridge that misperception, he called on those in agriculture to do a better job educating the public about current farming practices and how farmers are true professionals.

“Farmers, especially those who grow specialty crops, need to give the public a view of how we really farm, to show these are highly managed businesses and not a couple of guys in overalls with buckets throwing fertilizer,” he says. “They are professional people who do this for a living. They study these businesses. They grow up in these businesses, and they run them at a high level of oversight because the margins demand it. We can’t do things sloppily.”

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Leave us a comment and let us know your story or how you are a professional in the agriculture industry.

To learn more about Toro’s story, visit toro.com. Or, check out one of our many drip irrigation case studies to learn more about how professionals in the agriculture industry are using drip irrigation to improve their farming practices.

To read more about “telling the story”,

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Drip Chemigation Basics

Chemigation, in general, can be defined as the application of an agricultural chemical through any irrigation system, using the irrigation water to distribute the chemical. Chemicals include pesticides (insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, nematicides), fertilizers, plant growth regulators and other materials. Chemigation can be applied only if the product label allows such application, and only according to the label directions and restrictions.

The three basic crop irrigation systems include overhead/sprinkler, drip/trickle, and surface/gravity flow systems. The proper equipment, depending on the irrigation system, is essential for successful (as well as legal) chemigation. Although overhead irrigation and surface flow systems may be suitable for some vegetable crops, drip irrigation is widely used in vegetable production.

Many growers throughout the vegetable-growing regions of the U.S. are already using drip, or trickle, irrigation as a water management tactic. Chemigation via drip irrigation allows growers to apply pest control materials through a distribution system they already have in place (the drip system), thus saving significant time and money over ground-applied chemicals. Over the past 10 to 12 years, many field tests throughout the U.S. have demonstrated that application of insecticides via the drip system results in highly effective control of specific insect pests of vegetable crops using low rates of labeled insecticides.

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Pivot Sprinkler Irrigation Economic Comparison

Although center pivot sprinkler irrigation (CP) is the predominant irrigation method in the US Great Plains, there is growing interest in the use of subsurface drip irrigation (SDI). Pressurized irrigation systems, in general, are a costly investment. Producers need to carefully determine their best investment options. In 2002, Kansas State University developed a free Microsoft Excel template to compare the economics of center pivot sprinkler irrigation and subsurface drip irrigation for field corn (maize) production.

This template has been updated annually with new input and revenue costs and assumptions. Important factors that have always affected CP and SDI competitiveness are field size and shape suitable for center pivot sprinkler irrigation and longevity of SDI system allowing longer amortization of its greater initial cost. The primary factors that allow SDI to have greater economic competitiveness than was the case in 2002 are greater corn yields and corn price. Using the base assumptions in the template for a square 160 acre field, an SDI system lasting at least 11 years can be cost competitive with a center pivot sprinkler with a life of 25 years.

Click here to find out how SDI compares economically to CP irrigation and to download the whitepaper, “Comparison of SDI and Center Pivot Sprinkler Economics.” Or,

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Why Midwest Growers Are Converting to Subsurface Drip Irrigation

In the Midwest, the land where pivot irrigation is king, some growers are converting to subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) to save water, decrease energy and labor costs, and increase crop yield and quality. Though there is an initial investment cost, the water savings and yield improvement reduce the payback period and the benefits of subsurface drip irrigation out-weigh many of the drawbacks of pivots, which include limited reach, costly additions, un-watered acres, and water loss to evaporation – just to name a few.

To learn more about SDI, check out the new “how-to” guide to subsurface drip irrigation. Or, continue reading to find out why Midwest growers are converting to subsurface drip irrigation.

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NRCS Chief Tours California Farms & New Drip Irrigation System

USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Chief Jason Weller toured local farmland in Los Banos, California that is benefiting from a federal partnership between NRCS and the U.S. Department of Interior Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) to protect the Bay-Delta Watershed. Approximately $6 million was invested by the two agencies, from 2011 – 2013, to upgrade irrigation water delivery infrastructure and on-farm irrigation equipment to conserve water for San Luis Canal Company farmers.

“Water is the lifeblood of agriculture and the environment,” said Cannon Michael, a local farmer. “Farmers have a duty to be good stewards of our resources and conservation is a key element of good stewardship. Improved water use efficiency and reduced runoff benefits farmers and the environment. Our partnership with NRCS has yielded very positive results and their programs encourage conservation on a large scale.”

Weller toured Michael’s new drip irrigation system, funded by NRCS, and nearby infrastructure improvements funded by Reclamation.

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Young Texas Farmers See “the Future of Agriculture” in Subsurface Drip Irrigation (SDI)

The tales of young, tech-savvy entrepreneurs launching new ventures out of Silicon Valley are common. But what about three 20-something brothers who live – not in some high tech mecca – but near the small community of Wilderado, Texas, who started a new business venture?

The Gruhlkey brothers – Brittan, 24, Braden, 25, and Cameron, 20 – are farming cotton, corn, sorghum and wheat while showing how technology plays an important role in farming. The average age of Texas farmers is nearly 60 years old, making their enterprise a unique one and they’re doing this amid huge challenges, including an ongoing drought and a growing demand for water.

“Because of the era we’ve grown up in, we’re comfortable with new technology and not wedded to doing things the way they’ve always been done,” said Braden, a third-generation farmer.

These technological advancements allow them to better water and feed their crops. Through subsurface drip irrigation, they can deliver water uniformly across the field and directly to the root of the plant to use water more efficiently. Through this irrigation system, they can schedule when plants are watered and eliminate over-watering.

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Toro Expands Agricultural Irrigation & Acquires Water Savings Equipment Co.

As we look to the future, water availability and increasing demand for food are driving awareness for the importance of more efficient forms of irrigation. To meet increasing demand, The Toro Company has announced that it has closed its acquisition of the Xiamen Xiangfeng Water Saving Equipment Company (Located in Xiamen City, China), manufacturer of water-efficient drip irrigation products, sprinklers, emitters and filters for agriculture, landscaping and green house production. Toro’s goal? Continuously improve and meet increasing demand by delivering high quality solutions for growers.

With China being a critical growth market for micro irrigation, this acquisition also provides a means to grow the company’s presence in this important market. Toro is expanding their micro irrigation business, as evidenced by this acquisition and the recently completed micro irrigation manufacturing facility in Romania to support the growing Asian Eastern European regions.

Toro entered the agricultural micro irrigation business in 1996 with the acquisition of James Hardie Irrigation, and has since grown its position through the development of industry-leading drip technologies and investments to expand globally.

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Subsurface Drip Irrigation (SDI) System Shines at Husker Harvest Days

For 36 years, Husker Harvest Days has been the premiere agricultural show for the technology that drives irrigation. This year, a subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) system has been installed at the show site to irrigate a cornfield and part of the grass parking lot south of the exhibit area.

Show Manager Matt Jungmann said it’s the first time an SDI system has been installed at the site. He said he’s pleased with the results of the SDI, which Western Irrigation of Garden City, Kan., installed in the spring. Jungmann said last year’s drought was hard on the six-acre parking lot, but the SDI has helped restore the grass. He said corn harvested on the ground with the SDI system is averaging more than 200 bushels per acre.

The SDI drip lines are on 60-inch centers and buried 14 inches deep. The system is fed by a 300-gallon-per-minute well powered by a submersible pump and applies water directly to the crop’s root zone using polyethylene tubing.

The new system, along with other innovations in irrigation technology, are helping farmers conserve water while applying management practices that improve crop production. Technology is also playing a bigger role each year in irrigation, such as connecting a control panel wirelessly to a computer or smartphone so the operator can manage the system remotely.

While companies such as Western Irrigation have been installing SDI systems throughout the Great Plains, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has been researching SDI systems throughout the state.

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