Tips to Winterize Your Mechanized Irrigation Equipment

Technician servicing a center pivot

For those growers in the Northern hemisphere, winter is only weeks away!  Before it gets too cold out, or the white precipitation known as snow starts to fall, take the time to winterize your center pivot and linear machines.  Below are some tips that will help you winterize your center pivot or linear.  For more tips and information, contact your local Valley dealer.

1. Move your center pivot/linear to a different location for the season so that there is a less likely chance of wind or rodent damage.
2. Close all large openings in the machine to protect against rodents.
3. Drain water from the pumps (to the lowest point they can hold water), gearbox, and center drive and make sure the gear lubricant is at the proper level.
4. Fill deep wheel tracks to reduce stress on irrigation, tillage, and harvest equipment.  If your wheel tracks are very deep and becoming a nuisance, consider at this time replacing the machine's wheels for another floatation option.
5. Inspect and replace worn motor contactors, and lock down power supplies.
6. Check for broken or worn sprinkler components and replace them if needed.  Take this time to consider a newer sprinkler package that may be more efficient.
7. Check the pressure in your tires, as well as the overall condition of the tires, and tighten lug bolts.
8. Flush the span pipe line and clean out the sand trap.
9. Check for worn U-joints and replace if needed.
10. Check your flow meter or ask your dealer to measure your actual flow output; adjust as needed.
11. Based on your findings, it's always good to create a list of items that need worked on for each machine!

The Great Arsenic Panic of 2012 | by Kelly Downing

There has been a lot of talk in the media recently about rice, particularly with the release of reports by both the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Consumer Reports magazine concerning arsenic concentrations in rice and rice products. A brief check brings up articles in newspapers (Boston Globe), magazines (Consumer Reports), television (ABC News) and the web (Huffington Post). The studies have elicited widely divergent recommendations. For example, the FDA recommends no changes in rice consumption until more information is available. Consumer Reports, on the other hand, recommends limiting rice consumption, especially for infants and children. 

When we see such widespread coverage, especially given the somewhat hysterical nature of some stories, it is easy to react emotionally. I prefer to take a step back, view the phenomenon through the lens of calm, rational thought, and apply some scientific logic before responding. If you have a few minutes, let’s think about this issue together. 

First, I must admit to being a bit of a contrarian; when I see these stories that imply a grave health risk associated with rice (or any other modern food) consumption, I wonder why life expectancies are increasing, not decreasing, during these times of “industrial food production”. Seriously, I really believe that many of the things we worry about today are concerns simply because of the great advances in scientific testing achieved in the past half century. It is now pretty easy to test for various substances down to the parts-per-million (ppm), parts-per-billion (ppb) and even parts-per-trillion (ppt) levels. As a result, we tend to discover the presence of more and more potentially risky elements in sensitive areas. 

However, I also recognize that just because we did not know something was present, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a serious concern, especially with something as toxic as Arsenic. One problem in assessing the real level of risk posed by arsenic in rice is, there are no established “safe” levels for food products, including rice. Also, there has not been a lot of study done to establish whether arsenic poses a bioaccumulation threat, like lead does, in the human body. 

With all this in mind, I prefer to use some common-sense guidelines. For example, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recommends a limiting inorganic arsenic intake to 15 micrograms per kilogram of body weight per week. With this limit, a 70 kilogram man (155 pounds) would be allowed 1.05 micrograms per week. So, although there can be significant variability, if we think about the average arsenic content of American rice (0.2 ppb), a 155-pound man would be at immediate risk if he consumes more than about four cups of rice per day. Since Americans typically consume much less than this, the risk is probably not extreme, especially in the short term. Personally, I haven’t been at this weight since junior high school, so I have a little more leeway! 

It is also important to discuss how recent research seems to indicate that the arsenic content of rice can be “managed”. Arsenic content in rice is a function of natural soil arsenic content, so the amount accumulated in grain depends to some extent on where it is grown. In addition, flooded conditions cause greater arsenic uptake by crops than aerobic conditions. In fact, a recent research study, performed at the University of Sassari in Italy, found that irrigating rice with sprinklers can reduce arsenic content by about 50 times! Note that this is not 50%, but rather, arsenic content 50 TIMES higher in rice grown under flood. Obviously more research is needed, but this study certainly seems to be well done, and the results are significant. If you are interested, you can find the report here: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es300636d. 

Since Americans don’t generally eat very much rice, a more pressing issue in most cases is, how much arsenic is present in the drinking water? The Environmental Working Group has a web site that can help people assess the quality of their drinking water. If you are interested in this, you can try this web site: http://www.ewg.org/tap-water/whats-in-yourwater. 

I am sure this topic will get more and more attention as time goes on. Public reaction will certainly guide the response, especially as food companies listen to what their customers want. As I have said previously, we are not out to convert all flooded fields to pivots, nor am I interested in disparaging a proven production method like flooding rice. However, under some conditions growers may need new alternatives for growing rice, and pivot irrigation is a viable alternative. These conditions may include expanding into non-traditional soils, adding a new crop to a rotation or, as we are beginning to see, pressure from our customers who may want us to use different management methods to limit arsenic content. 

The key is, we should keep our options (and our minds) open and be prepared to adapt.

Variable Rate Irrigation

Here to Stay, or Just a Fad?

Originally posted in the Spring 2012 issue of PivotPoint.

Variable Rate Irrigation (VRI) is touted as one of the latest improvements in irrigation management. From helping growers to use water more efficiently to preventing runoff, VRI has been promoted as an excellent investment. 

But is this just a fad? Jake LaRue, Director of Global Applications and Projects for Valley Irrigation, says this technology is not just a passing fancy, but is here to stay. “No solution that can help manage resources significantly better is a fad. Growers point out benefits that include reducing their yield variability across the field, helping to maximize the value of their limited water supply and even helping to control runoff.” 

According to LaRue, depending on how prescriptions are applied and the goal of the grower, using this technology may increase total yields, optimizing the productivity of the management zones in the field. However, LaRue sees VRI helping growers to maximize more than just yields: it helps to maximize profitability, the end game for every grower. 

“Putting irrigation where it will do the most good, controlling runoff and deep percolation, maximizing the value of seed, fertilizer and other inputs all help drive up profitability,” he explained. 

As for the future of VRI, LaRue advises growers to look at the current use of variable rate fertilization, spraying and seeding. “Variable Rate Irrigation is the next logical step,” he concluded. 

For more articles from PivotPoint, click here.

Article on Variable Rate Irrigation

An article was recently published on Agriculture.com about Variable Rate Irrigation (VRI).  A Valley customer who currently uses VRI on his operation in Nebraska, USA, was interviewed about using this technology.

In addition to precisely irrigating his fields, the customer stated the following about VRI: “Interestingly enough, variable-rate irrigation appears to be another management tool for controlling white mold,” he says. “By using the VRI in conjunction with moisture probes, we were able to keep the top layer of soil a little dryer so it didn’t accelerate the development of mold spores.”

To read the article in its entirety, please visit Agriculture.com.