The Pacific Institute recently released a study entitled “Sustaining California Agriculture in an Uncertain Future”. 

The full report is available at: http://www.pacinst.org/reports/california_agriculture

In the conclusions and recommendations section of the report, the authors (Cooley, Christian-Smith, and Gleick) state:

 

“One of the many challenges to studying water issues in California is the lack of a consistent, comprehensive, and accurate estimate of actual water use. The failure to accurately account for water use contributes directly to the failure to manage it sustainably. Efforts should be implemented immediately to improve our understanding of actual water use in the agricultural sector.”

 

Those close to Net Irrigate know how often we echo this sentiment.  Flow meters in the agricultural sector are useless unless stakeholders have timely access to the data.  Likewise, it isn’t only important to understand how much water is being used, but also HOW it is being used.  For example, if a single irrigation system is watering multiple crops, the net irrigation requirements for each crop is usually different.  Appropriate policy and irrigation practices cannot be implemented unless this intelligence can be accurately delivered to all stakeholders.  Delivering such information as accurately as possible is Net Irrigate’s mission.

Net Irrigate announced early this year that version 3.0 of our hardware would support dual pulse inputs.  We envisioned a common installation would involve both a flow meter and a rain gauge, such that a true “net irrigation” could be captured and analyzed via our web based software. 

With the support of our finest Texas customers, we are pleased to see that this vision of capturing a true “net irrigation” amount is becoming a reality.  Rainfall in the Texas High Plains was collected at over a dozen sites in the past week and immediately transmitted to netirrigate.com through a Rain Gauge Tipping Bucket.

Producers now have the added benefit of configuring real-time alerts such that they can be notified when it starts or stops raining at a particular irrigation site.  Likewise, the amount of rainfall can be easily viewed at netirrigate.com allowing them to strategically determine if the desired “net irrigation” amount has been met, thereby allowing them to perhaps stop their irrigation system.  We hope this added functionality to our service can ultimately result in less ground water pumped and energy consumed.

Frank A. Ward (Department of Agricultural Economics and Agricultural Business, New Mexico State University) and Manuel Pulido-Velazquez (Department of Hydraulic and Environmental Engineering–Institute of Water and Environmental Engineering, Universidad Polite´ cnica de Valencia) recently published a scholarly article which suggests that water conservation subsidies will not provide farmers with economic incentives to reduce water depletion.  A focus of the study was drip irrigation.  While its benefits were discussed, the research suggests drip irrigation does not necessarily save water when considered from a basin scale.  The entire scholarly article can be read at:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/11/17/0805554105.full.pdf+html?sid=3888373b-c7b9-4b44-9aa5-dd95468acd29

Net Irrigate commends Ward and Pulido-Velazquez for their research efforts.  In addition to the insightful content, one particular paragraph of their report struck a cord with us:

“What measures can be taken to promote real water savings?
A first step could be accurate accounting of basinwide water use.
Water accounting analyzes use, depletion, and productivity of
water at the basin scale*. Accurate accounting and measurement
of water use can help identify opportunities for water
savings, increase water productivity, and improve the rationale
for water allocation among uses*.”

*Molden D (2007) Water For Food, Water For Life: A Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture (Earthscan, London). 

At Net Irrigate, we take water accounting seriously.  Our telemetry solutions coupled with our web based reporting and data analysis tools store up to five years of historical data and provide high degrees of granularity.  Our graphical components make analyzing data easy.  What good are flow meter and conservation programs if stakeholders cannot have timely access to data?  Proactive measures can better be taken when data is in workable formats and free from lags.

Cynthia Barnett’s book Mirage: Florida and the Vanishing Water of the Eastern U.S. coupled with her recent presentation at the University of Central Florida hopefully will make Florida growers aware of irrigation technologies which can add both convenience and conservation to their operations. 

In her presentation at UCF, Ms. Barnett noted that flood irrigation techniques dominate Florida because of cost.  She also stated that “Helping farmers achieve efficiency could give us millions of gallons of water per day.”  Likewise, Ms. Barnett stated that micro-irrigation may serve as a possible conservation solution.

We at Net Irrigate agree with Ms. Barnett’s sentiment.  We would also like to add that in addition to not applying water directly to the root zone; flood irrigation is wasteful because it presently requires the human eye to discern when water has covered an entire field.   In many areas, such as the mid-south, it is not uncommon for a farmer to have to manage at least twenty flood flow irrigation pumps.   Due to the spread out geographic nature of agriculture, water runoffs typically occur because farmers must travel to flood irrigated fields to determine if irrigation has completed.  Additionally, farmers then must physically shut down the associated pump.  Because agriculture is a time consuming business, it may be several hours before a farmer can travel to a field to discern optimal irrigation and shut down a pump.  The detrimental result is in unnecessary pumping hours and wasted water.
 
While not nearly as efficient as an entire micro-irrigation system, the NetIrrigate® Telemetry Box is a much more inexpensive solution which can conserve water, energy, and add convenience to a farming operation.  The NetIrrigate® Telemetry Box has been installed on several flood irrigation systems in Southeast Missouri and Arkansas.  When water arrives to certain points in the field, a text message or phone call is sent to the grower.  The grower may then flip out his/her cell phone and shut down their pump from anywhere!

Net Irrigate thanks Ms. Barnett for making more people aware of the potential crisis situation facing our nation and commend her on her research efforts thus far.

The presidential debate on October 15th made “Joe the Plumber” famous. But little was discussed about the most important aspect of plumbing: WATER. As both candidates talked about cutting the budget with hatchets and scalpels, I began to wonder what the future of the U.S. Water and Wastewater Agricultural Segment Budget might be! For those of you unfamiliar with this segment of the federal water budget, I’ll provide a quick overview…

The water budget allocated for the agricultural segment is mostly used to improve the conditions of water systems used for farming and rural consumption. A primary goal of the funds is to reduce water costs and improve water quality for rural users. The 2008 budget is around $2.9 Billion and is comprised of the following seven entities which consume the respective amounts:

The majority of the expenditures are in the forms of loans and grants to address water system improvements. For example, the Rural Utilities Service provided funding for construction projects such as: new water lines, pumping stations, wells, storage tanks, and treatment plants.

As competition for water resources continues to increase in Western States, I urge our presidential candidates to not lose sight of mankind’s most precious resource as they plan their budget cuts. Likewise, I encourage stakeholders to gain an understanding of how these dollars might be being spent in your agricultural community by contacting local representatives of the agencies listed above.