California Water in the News, Again. What's the Real Story? | by Ray Batten

Over the last few years, the California water issue has been on the front page almost every day. Drought, endangered fish and big ag have been named the perpetrators of the gloom and doom. The real story may be not only more interesting, but even more serious.

The gems of California agriculture are the San Joaquin Valley and the Imperial Valley. Both are deserts with water. The San Joaquin Valley includes approximately 8.5 million irrigated acres and is almost completely irrigated with water from the Sierra snowpack, while the Imperial Valley draws water from the Colorado River for its 500,000 acres.

The San Joaquin Valley 

In the early 1900s, visionary folks drew up a plan to make the Golden State a reality. Taking snow pack and turning it into water, storing it in mountain reservoirs behind a network of dams, and building a very advanced system of ditches to deliver the precious water to the dry – yet fertile – farm ground and the city folks below. City and rural water districts were organized, land was cleared, fields were leveled and drain ditches built.

The design and subsequent finished product was built around the premise that someday there would be 15 million people in the cities to drink, play and use the water, plus maybe 4 million acres of farm ground to nourish.

California flourished and grew. People came from all over to experience the dream. Jobs abounded, fortunes were made and California became the place where dreams come true. Remember Walt Disney?

Enter a typical drought cycle in the early 2000s with 35 million citizens and nearly 9 million acres now feasting on the California water system. Add to that the endangered spices acts, powerful environmental groups and outdoors fans now all vying for a piece of the pie. Thousands of acre feet are used to flush the non-indigenous Delta Smelt into the San Francisco Bay, and the building of additional storage becomes a matter of litigation and not construction, so nothing gets done.

This amazing state still produces a high percentage of all vegetables, nuts, milk and protein for the American people and the world.

The story continues to shed light on the California farmer who has adopted every available technology and methodology to become efficient and sustain the viability of the industry.

They are great "Stewards of the Land" and have tirelessly worked to do more and more with less and less.

In many ways, the current focus on California water has frozen a large number of water users in the agriculture sector who could improve their water to crop delivery systems because they fear possible state and federal regulation actions that might negatively impact their land value.

In more direct words, the water may be worth as much or more than the land, so if they reduce the amount they use the old term of "use it or lose it" looms heavy.

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Ray Batten Large Grower Relations Ray received a degree in civil engineering in Washington State and has more than 30 years of experience in the agricultural irrigation industry as a service tech, designer, salesman, contractor and dealership owner. Ray has spent the last 15 years at Valmont® Industries in territory management and as the large grower relations manager for North America. He has been active in the Idaho Irrigation Equipment Association, the California Agricultural Irrigation Association and the Irrigation Association. Ray lives south of Dallas on Cedar Creek Lake with his wife and best friend, Cindy, and enjoys his children, grandchildren and lake living.

Pivot Irrigation, Not Furrows, Is Most Economical for Delta | by Bonnie A.Coblentz

Written by and reprinted with permission from Mississippi State University Ag Communications

STONEVILLE, Miss. - Pivot irrigation is no longer a common sight across the Delta, but experts say this equipment remains a viable and efficient way to water crops.

“I would like to see pivots in the Delta,” said Jason Krutz, irrigation specialist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service. “They deliver water more efficiently, so if we have an aquifer problem, which everything indicates we do, they would go a long way toward helping address it.”

In recent years, Delta producers have been removing pivot irrigation from their farmland and replacing it with furrow-irrigation systems after their fields were land-formed. Most pivot systems in the Delta were installed 25 to 30 years ago and were designed to conservatively meet the estimated daily water needs of cotton.

More recently, pivots have been designed to meet the maximum daily water requirements of all crops grown in the Delta under the most extreme weather conditions.

“Many producers have a pivot on one field and furrow irrigation in an adjacent field, and they have a higher yield in the field with furrow irrigation,” Krutz said. “They have higher yields because furrow irrigation can keep up with the water demands of cotton, but these older pivots were not set up to keep up with the maximum water demands of corn and soybeans.”

Spray nozzles on pivots can be checked and replaced, and the entire system can be revamped to provide a higher rate of water. Cost-share packages are available to help producers make this happen, but in the Delta, many choose to abandon this method of overhead irrigation.

Krutz would like to see this trend reversed.

“Furrow irrigation is about 55 percent efficient, which means for every inch of water I apply, only one-half reaches the target, which is below the soil surface but not deeper than 3 feet,” he said. “Pivots are about 85 to 90 percent efficient, so for every inch of water, almost nine-tenths of an inch reaches the rooting zone.”

Furrow irrigation uses a collapsible pipe with holes punched in it. A pipe placed in each row allows water to flow down the furrows. While polypipe is not expensive, and maintenance is simple, the ground may need to be sloped so that water flows across the entire field.This dirt work can make the cost of setting up furrow irrigation as expensive as the cost of installing a pivot-irrigation system.

Larry Falconer, Extension agricultural economist at the MSU Delta Research and Extension Center in Stoneville, has included these costs in planning budgets available to producers.

“In some cases, the dirt work can exceed the cost of the pivot equipment,” Falconer said. “We calculated that installing a half-mile pivot costs about $400 per irrigated acre. If you assume it will cost $1.35 per cubic yard for dirt work, installing furrow irrigation will be more expensive than installing pivot irrigation if you have to move more than 350-400 yards per acre.”

Falconer said installation costs for pivot irrigation is lowest on square fields, but furrow irrigation is better suited for irregularly shaped fields.

It also costs less to operate pivot irrigation than to furrow irrigate.

“If you start with a half-mile pivot-irrigation system, total costs to irrigate with 7.5 inches of water per acre are just under $99 an acre,” Falconer said. “A comparable rollout pipe system would use 13 inches of water per acre and have a total cost of $105 per acre. You’d be pumping about 60 percent more water because the furrow system is less efficient.”
Lyle Pringle, associate agricultural engineer and irrigation researcher with the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station, explained the efficiency losses in both systems.

“You have to put on more water with furrow irrigation because it has to run from the upper end of the field to the bottom end of the field,” Pringle said. “To get a good irrigation on the bottom third of the field on a lot of our soils, you have to run some water off to give more time for water to soak in on the bottom. You don’t have that much runoff with a pivot.”

Pivot irrigation sprays water over the tops of the plants, and some is lost to evaporation. With furrow irrigation, some is lost into the soil as the water percolates deeper than the rooting zones. But furrow irrigation has some benefits.

“With furrow irrigation, you can water every acre,” Pringle said. “With a pivot, you generally have to leave out the corners. Since most systems are electrical, when pivot systems go down, they can be more difficult to fix and they can get stuck in the field. Downtime needs to be minimized with pivots, because they are not designed to play catch-up.”

Pringle would like to see existing, older pivots renozzled to more efficiently meet the needs of crops during the highest water demand. Wells should be designed and maintained to deliver the designed flow for the life of the system.

“I believe a well-managed, well-designed pivot can make just as much yield as a furrow,” he said. “Furrow irrigation efficiencies can be improved with better water management, but inherently will be less than a well-maintained pivot system. And as water continues to be pumped from the aquifer and we have less and less in reserve, pivots make good sense.”

By Bonnie A. Coblentz, MSU AgCommunications.

Middle East Dealerships Provide Unique Service Offerings | by Adrian Cliffe

In the Middle East market, we have a lot of large-scale projects with investors. Some of these investors have limited experience when it comes to managing large-scales farms. When that happens, the irrigation equipment is often overlooked and not correctly maintained. 

A large-scale farm project in the desert.

This type of equipment neglect can mean the return on investment is drawn-out and can lead to a lot of unhappy investors. 

To address this, a lot of Middle East Valley_® dealerships are offering 24-hour service contracts. The dealerships have full-time, trained employees based on the farms to respond quickly to any equipment issues that may arise.

The Middle East dealerships also offer support to all farmers. In the Middle East, flow meters are often not sold with systems. Therefore, customers don’t know if their pumps are applying the correct amount of water for the crops. 

Our dealers offer a solution using a digital flow meter. They visit the farmers monthly, quarterly, or even yearly to update the farmer on a pump's performance. 

This all leads to offering better support to the end user and making sure that Valley equipment is always working at its most efficient. It also creates a win-win partnership for everyone and happy investors.

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Adrian Cliffe Territory Sales Manager for Egypt, Turkey, Oman, and UAE Adrian has been working for Valmont® Irrigation for more than 3 years. He is an agricultural engineer and has worked for the largest suppliers of machinery in Ireland. He enjoys designing and manufacturing farm machinery. Adrian was a member of the Middle East hurling team that won the international championship last year. He also plays soccer and likes going to the movies and relaxing at the pool.

Smart Irrigation Month Helps Growers Maximize Water-Use Efficiency

Valley_® is joining the celebration of Smart Irrigation Month by helping growers maximize water-use efficiency. 

Smart Irrigation Month is a public awareness campaign to promote efficient water use and highlights effective practices and innovative technologies to:

• Increase crop yield per acre. 
• Apply water and nutrient inputs more precisely for improved results with no waste. 
• Minimize runoff and top soil erosion. 
• Help protect and preserve water supplies for today and the future. 

Center pivot and linear irrigation machines deliver exactly the right amount of water at the right time. Efficient irrigation: 

• Precisely applies water and nutrients to minimize evaporation, runoff and waste. 
• Generates more crop per drop. 
• Adjust watering automatically to account for rain and other conditions. 
• Minimizes overwatering 

Join the cause and help protect our global water resources. Every drop counts! Learn more at www.smartirrigationmonth.org.

Smart Irrigation Month is an initiative of the Irrigation Association, a non-profit industry organization dedicated to promoting efficient irrigation. 

Irrigating to Conserve the World's Water | by Brooke Stover

We all know that the world’s water resources are being depleted. While 70 percent of the world’s surface is covered in water, only .05 percent of it is accessible freshwater that we can use (much of the remaining fresh water is frozen in icecaps or is inaccessible groundwater). Of that .05 percent of freshwater, 70 percent is used for agricultural withdrawals. (This information is illustrated in the image below.)

This means that 70 percent of the water is currently being used to feed our ever-increasing population. The global population increases by 8,000 people every hour. Without irrigation, growers would be unable to produce higher yields on fewer acres, so it is important that we invest in ways to feed the growing population without completely depleting the world’s water resources.

How can we do this? We can invest in more efficient means of irrigation practices. Yields can be increased while using less water, the water just needs to be applied more effectively. Center pivot irrigation can reach efficiencies of 98 percent, while traditional flood irrigation is only about 40-50 percent efficient.

To see how center pivot irrigation matches up to less efficient methods of irrigation, visit this Website.

At Valley_®, our goals are to improve irrigation practices throughout the world and to help feed the growing population while developing new and improved technologies that apply water more efficiently.

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Brooke Stover Global Marketing Coordinator Brooke has been with the Valley Irrigation Global Marketing department since 2011. She spends her free time taking pottery classes; though she thoroughly enjoys this, most of her stuff is a bit lopsided. Brooke also loves to read and listen to Frank Sinatra. She enjoys traveling and has been to 11 countries with the goal to make it to six more in the next six years!

Smart Irrigation Month | by Kelly Downing

July has been Smart Irrigation Month. I don’t know about you, but I completely missed all of the parades, fireworks displays, and benefit concerts in its honor. I didn’t even see the telethon. Like most of you, I was too busy trying to irrigate efficiently! 

No, this observation gets lost in everything else going on in our busy world. There is value in thinking about the concept, however. Often we get so wrapped up in keeping up with the day-to-day challenges of our operations that we get a little tunnel vision. It is easy to focus so intently on the critical, immediate issues in front of us that we temporarily forget about larger, more general topics. 

The current drought conditions faced by farmers in many areas of the U.S. provide a constant reminder that “smart irrigation” is not just a catchy phrase or a “cause of the day.” It is becoming increasingly obvious that this is, and will be, a critical concept for the future of agriculture. Not just in western states, where the climate is arid, and not just in “traditional” irrigation areas. 

Competition for water continues to increase. Not just competition between farmers; not just competition between states; not just competition between agriculture and industry; not just competition between agriculture and domestic or urban users (irrigating vs. drinking water). We increasingly see competition between agriculture and environmental interests, in the interest of protecting wildlife habitat, endangered or at-risk animal and plant populations. There is also increasing interest in how farm practices hundreds of miles away influence coastal and marine environments, like Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. 

This competition is not limited to volume of water used, either. Protecting and improving water quality is more important now than ever. Water quality will continue to be a hot topic in our cultural, political, regulatory and economic discussions. Let us not forget that quality is a broad term. It can include physical (temperature, particle transport) as well as chemical (nutrient content, pesticides in solution) components. 

All of these issues, especially combined with the constant pressure to increase food production and maintain profitability, make it imperative to find and implement the “smartest” irrigation practices possible. We need to work to increase both effectiveness and efficiency of irrigation. To me, “effectiveness” means that we apply every ounce of water the crop needs to achieve our goals, in the correct amounts and at the correct times. “Efficiency” means we apply not an ounce more than that, with the minimum possible energy, labor and cost. 

I mention all these things not to create alarm, but to spur thought and discussion. I think the great majority of producers are conscientious about all these issues, and good managers include them in their systems as a matter of course. I also think we would all be better served if we keep the discussions among stakeholders (ag, municipal, industrial, environmental) to a reasoned, rational tone, with everyone committed to working together. Sometimes we forget this part. 

Jeremy Baltz's rice field

Of course you knew this would come up eventually, but here it is: one way we are trying to “increase our irrigation IQ” is with our Circles for Rice project. Last week, I had the chance to stop by Jeremy Baltz’s field in Arkansas. His pivot rice looks quite good so far, while he has applied just about half of the water used on a nearby flood field. It will be exciting to see how the rest of the season goes, as we continue to study this “smart irrigation” practice. 

You probably remember the old joke: “It’s hard to remember that your original goal was to drain the swamp when you are up to your {rear end} in alligators.” That is analogous to the situation we often find ourselves in: our goal is to increase efficiency, effectiveness, and profit, but our immediate concern is keeping the crop going and meeting the day-to-day pressures of farming. So, as you fight off the daily “alligators,” try to grab an occasional bucket of swamp water and throw it over your shoulder! 

I will be at the field days hosted by RiceTec, in Harrisonburg, and the University of Arkansas, in Stuttgart, next week. I hope to see you there. Stay safe!

For more smart irrigation tips, visit irrigation.org.

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	Kelly Downing International Ag Project Specialist Kelly, a Nebraska-based Irrigation Specialist, spent 10 years working on soil and water research projects for a major agricultural university, involving a variety of crops. His work focused on irrigation management, but also included other topics.
Since joining Valley Irrigation, he has worked in the fields of Service, Product Management, Product Reliability and Sales. Kelly focuses on developing projects in irrigation field management and providing recommendations for the Circles for Rice project. Kelly has traveled to several countries providing technical support, such as soil moisture monitoring and irrigation management training.