Irrigation

Lighting Up the Ranch for the Next Generation of Agriculture

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 22:29:51 GMT

Connectivity is a significant hurdle to the future of smart farming, says Don Cameron, vice president and general manager of Terranova Ranch. He says he’s wanted to add Wi-Fi and connected devices for a long time to better automate farm tasks, especially irrigation.

Once Cameron started working with high-speed internet service provider Cal.net, he began to explore broader implications of smart farming at Terranova Ranch. Later, he connected with Emergent, an ag tech company that provides an automation platform for the ranch.

Taking Manual Work Out of the Field

Cameron says that Emergent’s dashboard helped Terranova track irrigation on the ranch’s 2,200 acres of processing tomatoes instead of crews manually operating valves.

“We had guys going around every seven hours or eight hours, opening and closing valves to irrigate subsurface drip irrigation on tomatoes,” he says. “For every 75 acres, we have three valves.”

Cameron says this system is critical as groundwater management becomes a greater focus in farming in California. He says Terranova has specific allocations on groundwater use, so there are accurate records of irrigation as well as even applications.

“We’re seeing allocations on how much groundwater we can pump in certain areas here, and so being able to use water efficiently is really imperative for us,” he says. “As we move forward with groundwater management, it’s going to become extremely important.”

Cameron says Terranova benefits not only from accurate irrigation records through this precision irrigation application, but he’s also seen reduced labor and vehicle use.

“We can change the irrigation schedule from a phone. We do deficit irrigation as we approach harvest, so we can make these changes relatively easily,” he explains. “We can get better-quality crops, higher-yielding crops, and save water. We can irrigate during off-peak periods with electricity.”

Cameron says all of this is critically important as water use is the No. 1 issue California growers face. The more information he has on water usage, distribution and more, the better, he says.

“The more information we have, the more data we have on our water usage and even what’s going on with our wells, our pumping,” he says. “To me, that data is going to be even more important in the future because of the regulations we have here in California and how valuable water really is.”

Cameron says Terranova farms in four groundwater sustainability agencies, which have slashed the amount of water allocated.

“Next year, they’re cutting the amount of water to be pumped from the underground to 1 acre-foot per acre,” he says. “And a crop of tomatoes typically takes 2.5 acre-feet. Almonds could use as many as 4 acre-feet. So, you understand really quickly how important data is when we’re talking about exactly about water and crops that we can grow for the future and planning for the future.”

Building a Digital Paper Trail for Compliance

Cameron says Emergent’s platform has opened the door to where he can monitor much more of the farm beyond the irrigation.

Smart farming’s reach extends to well monitoring with AgMonitor and electronic timecards on workers’ phones, both of which he says are to stay in compliance with regulatory issues. Workers clock out for breaks, and having that electronic record is critical.

“If we ever get an issue with labor and proving our guys took breaks at the right time, believe me, this is a really important thing to have,” he says.

The timecards feed into Terranova’s payroll program, which has eliminated some manual work, Cameron says.

He also uses fixed-wing photos that take NDVI images to show moisture stress.

“This gives us assurance of what we’re doing with our irrigation,” he says.

Cameron has also placed trackers on Terranova’s sprayers, which helps monitor efficiency (and inefficiencies) on the ranch.

“We know if they miss a row,” he says. “We know how long it takes them to fill the sprayer, and if they’re spraying or if they’re screwing around.”

Vetting the Next Wave of Technology

Cameron says crop selection, in light of potential water use restrictions, will play a bigger role in the future of agriculture in California.

“They’re going to have to use conservation measures, and they’re going to have to use their water much differently than they have in the past,” he says.

Cameron, who has been a pioneer in groundwater recharge, says it’s critical to renew aquifers and prevent downstream damage during flooding.

Cameron switched to subsurface drip irrigation in 2009, and he says he saw not only water savings but better yields.

Connectivity also will play a major role in the future of agriculture, but he says there’s still much work needed in improving rural access.

“What we’re doing now, I think with IoT [internet-of-things] technology, I think is going to be really helpful long term,” he says.

Cameron has also experimented with automated weeders. The challenge with automated weeders, however, is that they have to pencil out in terms of speed and cost, he explains.

“What I’d love to see in the future is more automation in weeding, better technology, faster technology and lower-cost technology,” he says.

Cameron also hopes the future brings more integration of CRISPR technology with built-in disease resistance, “along with other new traits to make what we grow more flavorful, healthier, and more resilient,” he adds.

As for being a pioneer in the integration of technology, Cameron says he views taking a chance as being critically important.

“Sometimes you just have to say, ‘Look, we’re going to try this, and hopefully it’s going to work well, and let’s get behind it and give it a chance, and it solves a problem that we have,’” he says. “Typically, what happens is it works out well, and if it doesn’t, we stop.”

Agricultural DERMS Let Growers Tap into Valuable Energy Programs

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 20:50:10 GMT

If you’re using automation on your operation and generating your own energy, your operation could be a virtual power plant. That’s potential you can tap into that you and your utility might value.

On Jan. 20, Yield Energy, formerly Polaris Energy Services, announced the launch of Yield Edge DERMS, a distributed energy resource management system. The system organizes operation elements like irrigation pumps, cold storage, chargers for electric vehicles and other equipment, batteries, solar systems and other on-site energy generation. It also allows for responsive energy flexibility between the operation and the energy grid when the operation produces more than it needs.

“Yield acts as the energy orchestration layer on-farm, connecting end customers to utility incentive programs like demand response or dynamic rates,” Tim Nuss, head of business development at Yield Energy, tells The Packer. “There is nuance to each program, but we are either helping growers earn revenue or save money by participating.”

According to the company’s announcement, while it was validating the platform in California, enrolled growers earned an average of $20,000 to $30,000 annually in demand response programs, as well as saving roughly 15% to 20% on their energy bills in Hourly Flex Pricing, part of PG&E’s dynamic rates program.

“Agriculture has always had the potential to be one of the grid’s most powerful partners — it just needed the right tools,” Tyler Nuss, CEO of Yield Energy, says in the group’s announcement.

“We’ve proven that on-farm operations can deliver reliable, grid-ready flexibility at scale,” he adds. “Yield connects that flexibility to the operational demands of today’s grid, creating new revenue for growers while delivering capacity that’s faster, cleaner and far more affordable than new infrastructure.”

Both Tim Nuss and Tyler Nuss describe Yield Edge DERMS as specially tailored for the needs of agriculture.

“Most DERMS are focused on residential, and most demand response aggregators focus on commercial and industrial,” Tim Nuss says. He offers Energy Hub as an example of a residential-focused DERMS and Voltus as a commercial-focused response aggregator.

“Yield was founded to solely focus on the ag market as the participation requirements are so unique,” he adds.

Irrigation systems are one of those unique elements, something the company says it primarily supports. Yield Energy is currently working with seven different irrigation ag tech companies — WiseConn, Farmblox, Lumo, Ranch Systems, Swan Systems, Netafim and Verdi — making the DERMS a “bring your own device” situation that is device agnostic.

“The unique thing for growers is that the benefits Yield offers are zero out of pocket for them,” Tim Nuss tells The Packer. “We turn assets they already own (i.e., irrigation automation like Wiseconn) into new revenue streams or savings opportunities. If a grower has automation and we are integrated with that company, it’s really plug and play.”

5 Water Trends to Watch in 2026

Sun, 04 Jan 2026 16:27:54 GMT

The “everything old is new again” proverb will be at play in 2026 when it comes to water trends irrigators need to know in the new year.

The Packer sat down with Melissa Lilze — who, as of Jan. 1, became senior vice president of Netafim North America, the top position for Netafim in North America, and the first woman to lead Netafim’s North America division — on the top water trends coming in 2026. Several are long-running themes from years past that will continue to dominate in the new year. Others, however, are new and potentially novel.

No. 1: Water scarcity

This one is nothing new, but Lilze notes smart water management or “digital irrigation” that involves remote sensors, automated irrigation systems and real-time monitoring of conditions such as weather, soil moisture and crop needs — once the purview of highly techy early adopters — is increasingly mainstream in the face of ongoing water scarcity.

“Today it’s more of a necessity,” she says.

This fits with both USDA records and data from The Packer’s 2025 Grower Sustainability Insights .

According to the Census of Agriculture’s most recent few Irrigation and Water Management Surveys, the number of farms and open-field acres under irrigation using drip, trickle or micro-flow sprinklers has grown since 2008, even as farm numbers and open-field acres under irrigation have fallen.

For example, in 2008 , 43,368 farms (14.4% of 2007’s total irrigated farms) reported using these water-saving irrigation systems on 3.76 million acres (6.84% of total irrigated acres in 2008). In 2023 , the numbers had jumped to 60,160 farms (21.14% of 2022’s total irrigated farms) and 6.43 million acres (12.11% of total irrigated acres in 2023).

The Packer’s Sustainability Insights survey responses showed similar grower attention to water conservation efforts. Water efficiency was ranked as the most important sustainability issue by produce growers, and precision irrigation ranked high on the list of sustainability investments growers are making on their operations.

No. 2: Regulations and reporting requirements

Just like water scarcity is nothing new, so too is the mounting regulatory pressure because the two are so closely intertwined.

“[Ongoing water scarcity] just changes what we will see in the next few years with regulation around water use and groundwater use,” Lilze says, pointing to regulation and reporting requirements as a major water theme in 2026.

“We have increasing regulatory pressure in different farming regions. Growers must adapt to allocation limits that they’re given, especially in the western U.S.,” she says. While California and its Sustainable Groundwater Management Act come to mind when it comes to water regulations squeezing produce growers, regulations and their attendant reporting requirements can vary wildly by state, county and even by watershed.

Lilze framed digital irrigation as helpful to irrigators regardless of the regulatory situation they find themselves in because it not only helps with water conservation efforts but documents them at the same time.

“Many times the reason you have regulation is because you don’t have the data to show that you are being conservative with the water and of your resources,” she says. “I absolutely think the more information you have available to prove that you are a steward of the land, which these farmers are, I think the better situation they’re in on the front end of things.”

No. 3: Drip irrigation expanding

Lilze reports the well-known water saving strategy of drip irrigation has been expanding into new crops, something she highlights as a trend to watch. Alfalfa is an example she’s seen with Netafim.

“With an alfalfa, we’ll do an SDI system, which is a subsurface drip irrigation system, meaning we’ll actually bury the drip 10 to 12 inches underground,” she reports. Not only has this resulted in extra cuttings and increased yields, but it has management implications as well.

“You can get into the field quicker after a cutting because we’re not having to flood irrigate,” she says.

No. 4: Return of federal funds

A welcomed “new” trend in 2026 according to Lilze is the return of federal funding for conservation and sustainability improvements, including for water.

“There’s a lot of federal funding, NRCS [National Resources Conservation Service] and EQIP [Environmental Quality Incentives Program] monies, that are available typically every year. In 2025, a lot of that money got put on hold,” she says. “We just received news that the 2026 funding will be available in January, and growers will be able to apply and access those funds for smarter, more efficient irrigation systems.”

On Dec. 15, USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service announced it was opening its first funding round of key conservation programs. This includes the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program, Agricultural Management Assistance, the Conservation Stewardship Program, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, and the new Regenerative Pilot Program .

According to NRCS, growers, farmers and ranchers have until Jan. 15, 2026, to apply for the first batching period. National and State Conservation Innovation Grants will open later in the year.

“We’re really starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel with this funding coming,” Lilze says. “There’s been a lot of farmers that have benefited from this money over the years, and having it frozen last year really prevented a lot of new irrigation systems going in because [growers] need the funding to help with that initial year return.”

No. 5: New or untapped funding sources

In addition to the return of federal funding that can go to conservation irrigation efforts, Lilze points to other, potentially more novel or unexpected sources of funding for water sustainability projects as something irrigators should look for in 2026.

On the one hand, the “partnership economy” around water — basically, applying the carbon credit concept to water — is growing. Lilze pointed to Netafim’s Corporate Partnership Program as an example, explaining that they pair companies with high water usage with area farmers and growers who still use less efficient irrigation like flooding. The company helps fund the grower’s conversion to a drip irrigation system.

“So basically, we’d put in a drip irrigation system, we’d put our automation system out, and we can track water usage over that crop and over time, we can show the amount of water that’s been saved by investing in that drip irrigation system,” she says.

Other precision irrigation or ag tech companies have similar programs, such as Phytech and N-Drip. Though Lilze says Netafim has been “leading the charge” on developing these kinds of partnerships.

“We’ve been successful over the last two years in matching up these companies that have this money set aside for these sustainability practices with the farmers in the region that are trying to be more efficient in their farming.”

Lilze also recommends irrigators look at other, potentially untapped local funding sources for irrigation efficiency improvements such as state, county or watershed organizations.

For example, she notes that Utah’s Department of Agriculture has a fund specifically “to help their growers become more efficient water users.” Utah growers could receive as much as $500,000 in funding for irrigation optimization efforts. Applications for the program open on Jan. 1, 2026 and run through the end of February.

“There’s plenty of state funding moving because they want people to move away from flood to drip and conserve,” Lilze says.

Melissa Lilze to be Senior Vice President of Netafim North America

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 18:23:43 GMT

Orbia Advance Corporation’s precision agriculture business Netafim announced Dec. 16 that it has appointed Melissa Lilze as senior vice president of Netafim North America, effective Jan. 1, 2026. As part of her new role, Lilze will also join Netafim’s executive leadership team. Lilze succeeds Mike Hemman and brings nearly two decades of experience in agriculture and ag tech to the role.

Lilze has been with Orbia Netafim since 2016, starting as a sales representative in California and quickly advancing to lead sales in the Western U.S. Most recently, she served as senior director of sales for North America, where she was instrumental in expanding the business and strengthening customer relationships.

Prior to joining Orbia Netafim, Lilze held national and regional leadership roles in leading ag tech companies, successfully opening new markets, building high-performing sales teams and securing major multiyear agreements with industry partners.

“Melissa’s appointment marks an exciting milestone for Orbia Netafim,” says Gaby Miodownik, president and CEO of Netafim. “Melissa embodies the values and culture we have cultivated over many years of industry leadership. This, combined with her deep industry knowledge, commercial excellence and people-first approach, makes her the ideal fit to lead our North America business, which is a key growth market for Orbia Netafim. We are proud to have Melissa on board our executive leadership team as we continue to deliver real results for farmers across the globe.”

Lilze is the first woman to lead the North America division, joining a growing number of women in senior executive roles across Netafim.

“I’m excited to take on this role and lead our next chapter of growth for Netafim North America,” Lilze says. “Our focus for the coming years is clear: Deliver smarter irrigation solutions that empower growers, strengthen partnerships and drive sustainable impact. My approach starts with listening — to our customers, our teams and the land — because that’s where real innovation begins. Together, we’ll accelerate progress, create value across the supply chain and ensure agriculture and specialty markets thrive for generations to come.”

Lumo Gives Growers Real-Time Look at Irrigation Health

Tue, 02 Dec 2025 12:15:32 GMT

Precision irrigation system Lumo recently won the Audience Choice Award during the AgSharks Pitch Competition during the 2025 Western Growers Annual Meeting. Finalists included DriftSense, Mapana and TRIC Robotics.

Steele Roddick, senior digital marketing manager for Lumo, says the recognition came at a good time when the company has expanded beyond winegrapes into citrus, blueberries, apples and avocados.

“Growers are honest. As a general rule, if they’re not interested in your solution, they would let you know,” he says. “We’re very excited ... it’s just another point of confirmation of this core story around accountability, around closing this execution gap, about giving people block-level visibility into the performance of every irrigation. It is just a message that really does resonate with a lot of growers. And we’re excited about this proof point, which really shows that we’re on to something here.”

Roddick says the company’s founder began a quest in 2021 to develop an irrigation system that helped growers understand in real-time the performance and health of irrigation systems. The company, which deploys a wireless smart valve system with a flow sensor and connectivity, gives growers block-level performance. He says as growers began to use the technology, they started to understand the wide variability in the performance of their systems, either through rodent damage, closed valves or old emitters.

“Growers aren’t naive,” Roddick says. “They know maybe their system is operating at 80% or 90% of what they thought, but they don’t realize that sometimes the variation is much larger than they thought it would have been.”

And Roddick says as growers have begun to understand that variability, they’ve been able to improve both irrigation systems on the farm and the way in which they’re deploying the water on the farm.

“We’ve collected this data and seen it across more and more farms,” he says. “There’s a great deal of variation here. Once you can see into it, that really allows you to adjust your schedule, make improvements to your irrigation infrastructure, make adjustments to how you’re operating your irrigation system, and that produces better crop outcomes through precision. And of course, it has this automation piece built in, because you get this real-time data and you can watch flows. Growers get a lot more comfortable with running the system automatically with anyone on site, and that is a great deal of labor savings.”

Roddick says that the Lumo team has learned more as more about the different needs of specialty crop growers. As apple growers in Washington state often use overhead cooling in the summer months to keep orchard temperatures lower, Roddick says growers using Lumo can fine-tune block-by-block scheduling.

“We do want to be a complete precision irrigation platform,” Roddick says. “It’s not just valve automation. You need to do more than that. You need to control pumps and turn them on and off and figure out how to regulate their pressure and so on. So, pump automation is a key part, and a key part of [the] ROI story for lots of different growers, and then adding in soil moisture or other kinds of data. Growers want to see it all in one platform. There’s a ton of tech fatigue, and they want there to be one place to go to do their irrigations, and we want to be that place.”

Roddick says the team at Lumo wants to build out a more robust platform for winegrapes and continue to follow market demand from other specialty crop growers.

“Just from our conversations we have had with apple growers or with citrus growers in California, the core idea here of there’s an irrigation execution gap,” he says. “There’s a difference between your plan and what’s actually happening in the field, and you just don’t have visibility into it. That core story, the more we talk to growers and other crop types, is ‘Yes, we have this problem.‘ We are excited about broadening out the crop types, just in organic demand.”

Roddick says the Lumo team also wants to balance growth with providing the grower with support and product improvements. He says winning the Audience Choice Award during the AgSharks Pitch Competition at Western Grower’s Annual Meeting was a great opportunity to be in front of the biggest growers in California.

“You get good feedback from all these big, well-known ag-tech thinkers and get that sort of feedback on how you’re positioning your product and what you should be thinking about,” he says. “We were tremendously excited by the response. Obviously, winning was a very nice cherry on top of the experience, but our founder walked away very, very happy and excited about the enthusiasm that you see.”

How to Get 20-Plus Years Out of Your Drip Tape

Thu, 13 Nov 2025 19:20:02 GMT

What does it take to get drip tape to last for over 20 years? A lot of TLC, according to Brian King, farm manger of Fagerberg Produce.

The northeastern Colorado operation mostly grows a variety of onions as a direct-to-retail crop. King says the company was one of the first in Colorado and the nation to install permanent subsurface irrigation. It has roughly 1,000 acres under drip tape today, with one line running down the center of 28-inch beds at 8.5 inches deep for its onions. It uses majority ¾-inch tape with emitters at 12-inch intervals with some runs as long as 1,700 feet.

King estimates that the farm is about 80% of the way through replacing its original drip tape, some of which is 24 years old now. But the average lifespan is closer to 20 years, he says.

“I think the biggest key to our success is the care that we put into it and the attention to detail,” he says, adding that extensive filtration is the third rung on their overall strategy. Without those three elements, “you’re not going to be able to keep tape for 20 years.”

He says it’s not hard to do, but it is a lot of work — though it is work that pencils out for the farm.

King, who is originally from Texas, used to use single-use drip tape growing onion starts down near the Mexican border. He describes that tape as being half the cost of the tape Fagerberg uses, but since it gets replaced every year, the disposable drip tape gets “super expensive” fast. The permanent drip tape they take care of, on the other hand, is well worth the cost.

“For us, it’s a no-brainer because we’re keeping it in 20 years,” he says.

King walked The Packer through exactly what care, attention to detail and filtration looks like on the ground to get 20-plus years out of drip tape.

No. 3: Filtration (and lots of it)

King explains that Fagerberg does extensive filtration.

“We’re way overkill on our filtration,” he says. “Any drip company could come in here and tell you that we probably have three or four times the amount of filtration that we actually need.”

In practical terms, overkill means three identical filtration stations capable of handling about 4,000 gallons of water a minute, though they generally run 1,800 gallons to 2,000 gallons a minute. Well and ditch water runs through the filtration stations’ drums of specific-grit sand that gets changed every three years. The sand acts as a physical media filter.

“This is a huge pool filter is all it is,” King summarizes. “It’d be the same type of filtration that a pool would have in a house or in a backyard, but on steroids.”

Brian King of Fagerberg Produce explains the “overkill” filtration system that the farm uses to ensure the longevity of its drip tape.

(Photo by Kerry Halladay, Farm Journal)

No. 2: Attention to detail

Active filtering isn’t the only way Fagerberg pays close attention to what goes through its drip tape with an eye to its longevity. While the operation does “a ton of fertigation and chemigation through the drip,” King says he is exceptionally picky about what goes through the lines.

“Even a soluble powder that’s mixed in with water, I probably won’t put that through my tape because I don’t want to take the risk of clogging my emitters,” he says. “My true test on that is I’ll ask the salesman if they’re going to come out and shovel to dig holes when the emitter is clogged. And when they say no, I know it’s probably not safe to put it through my tape.”

When it comes to the safety of the tape — which is buried 8.5 inches compared to the usual 12 inches or more for permanent subsurface irrigation — tillage is a major challenge, King says.

“A disc is going to go 6 inches deep,” he says, adding that subsurface drip tape tends to rise over time. “So, the [tape] that’s 15-plus years old is going to end up rising an inch-plus. If we run a disc across it and we’re not diligent about setting the depth right, we’re going to start cutting tape.”

So, the team at Fagerberg is very diligent about depth and positioning accuracy when running anything in the fields with the drip tape.

“One-hundred percent of our passes are going to be with an RTK GPS guidance system,” King says. If an operator is going to be close to the tape, such as when undercutting the onions, they will need to check every two to three turns to ensure accuracy.

“The attention to detail is every time we go over with any implement, even though it’s not even close to the tape, we’re going to send a crew out there to make sure everything’s set perfect,” King says.

It’s a tedious process, he admits, but it is one the team has perfected. The tenure of the six full-time, year-round team members ranges from three to 33 years.

“We’ve got a great crew here,” King says.

No. 1: Care (aka maintenance)

The work it takes to keep the drip lines maintained and clean is also tedious but well worth it for Fagerberg. King explains that, at the beginning of every season, a crew of about four will go out to check for leaks along the lines. One to three days of checking for leaks is just part of the crop plan at Fagerberg.

A leak will show up on the surface as a very visible sink hole, but has the potential to wash away seeds or new starts if they aren’t established, which can be a very costly mistake, King says.

Leaks can come from a number of sources, including mice and worms that look for water sources in winter.

“The first year we had tape, we did not put a pesticide there in the wintertime when we winterized it and when we fired up in the spring, it was a disaster,” King says. Since then, the team at Fagerberg will pump the system out and run a pesticide through everything to keep the mice and worms from chewing holes in the tape.

However, taking care of the tape during the season plays potentially the biggest role in extending its lifespan, according to King.

“At the end of every irrigation cycle that we run, maybe for the last two hours, we’re putting sulfuric acid through it,” he says.

He explains that most operators with permanent drip tape will clean out the lines with acid once a year as part of winterization, but that he prefers to do it more often. The acid cleans out any moss or algae that could potentially build up in the tape or emitters.

“I think that may be the biggest key to our longevity,” King says. “We’re keeping that tape extremely clean throughout the growing season.”

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Irrigation Challenge Asks Students to Engage in a Real Ag Issue

Fri, 07 Nov 2025 19:35:48 GMT

How can we improve the efficiency of irrigation by using, rather than battling, gravity? That is at the heart of a challenge school kids can tackle this fall and potentially win prizes.

Purple Plow, an educational project of the American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture, recently announced its latest challenge for students in grades five through 12 — “ Water Wise Farms: Gravity in Action .” The challenge asks participating students or classrooms to design irrigation systems to deal with the real-world problem of water management on sloped farmland.

“Purple Plow Challenges are designed to create authentic learning experiences for students,” Julia Recko, managing director of AFBFA, tells The Packer.

“They have students research a real agricultural issue — for this challenge, it’s irrigation — design and test a solution, and present their findings, helping to build critical skills in leadership and problem-solving.”

Recko says Purple Plow and AFBFA chose irrigation for this year’s challenge to focus on water use. The challenge page and its accompanying materials for students and teachers note that roughly 70% of all freshwater withdrawals around the world are for agricultural use. She also characterized the challenge as designed to be crop-agnostic and as an engaging learning opportunity to get kids interested in agriculture.

Meghan Shamdasani, career and technical education coordinator at SouthTech Academy in Boynton Beach, Fla., and teacher of one of the 2023 winning teams, called the experience a fun, engaging way to incorporate agricultural awareness into the STEM classroom in Purple Plow’s announcement of the new challenge.

“Students apply real-world problem-solving skills to agricultural challenges,” Shamdasani says. “One of their favorite parts is integrating social media platforms into their projects to share their process, promote agricultural awareness, and showcase innovative solutions to authentic issues facing the industry.”

Challenge logistics

Those interested in participating in the challenge have until 12:00 a.m. on Dec. 2 to submit their entries. Individual students, teams, or whole classrooms can participate. There are two categories of participants: junior for participants in grades five through eight, and senior for participants in grades nine through twelve.

Purple Plow’s challenge page includes a full suite of resources for participants and their teachers, including a challenge guide for students, a content packet for teachers with background content plus a PowerPoint presentation, design frameworks for one-week and multiweek challenges, the challenge’s rubric and the required student reflection sheet .

According to Purple Plow, participating students will “learn to apply key scientific principles, prototyping strategies and design thinking to solve that exact problem. Creators will craft solutions that deliver water where it’s needed most, using techniques like drip lines, channel adjustments or engineered terrain modifications.”

Submissions are judged according to a rubric that prioritizes demonstrated understanding and in-depth discussion of the challenge’s key elements. For example, an exemplary entry will include multiple trials of a design or simulation, showing a clear testing and revision process, and the accompanying documentation will clearly explain in detail how the trials connect with real-world irrigation issues and the supporting evidence.

Recko says winning participants or teams can also get more than just a learning experience from participation.

“Winners are gifted either a 3D printer or their teacher can choose an Amazon gift card to help them purchase resources for future science projects,” she says. Winning teams and/or their teacher can also opt to be featured in the Purple Plow blog.

Nebraska Urges Action on Canal Fight with Colorado

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 11:56:56 GMT

Claims and counterclaims come in and out like seasonal stream flows in the ongoing fight between Colorado and Nebraska over the Perkins County Canal.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser and State Engineer Jason Ullman met with the state legislature’s Joint Water Resources and Agriculture Review Committee on Oct. 29. The hearing was to update the legislators on Nebraska’s lawsuit against Colorado, launched July 16, over a proposed canal on the South Platte River, an important source of irrigation water for both states.

“Our position is there is no case that’s yet ripe,” Weiser told the committee. “We’ve told the Supreme Court that this case is not ready for prime time, and the court should decline to hear it.”

Just minutes before the hearing began, however, Nebraska’s Attorney General Mike Hilgers issued a request to the U.S. Supreme Court , urging them to pursue the lawsuit and reject Colorado’s request for denial.

These are just the most recent events in a fight over water rights on the South Platte River that started July 16 when Nebraska sued Colorado .

On the one hand, Nebraska claims Colorado is violating the South Platte River Compact , which governs water sharing on the river between the states, is stealing water owed to Nebraska, and is hurting Nebraskan agriculture as a result.

On the other hand, Colorado claims Nebraska’s lawsuit is “meritless,” and has threatened the state and its agricultural property owners along the proposed canal path with unprecedented use of eminent domain.

Backstory Behind the Current Back-and-Forth

The compact, signed between the two states in 1923, outlined the right for Nebraska to create the Perkins County Canal in Colorado “for the diversion of water from the South Platte River within Colorado for irrigation of lands in Nebraska” during the non-irrigation season. Nebraska’s lawsuit asserts that Colorado has blocked its efforts to build this canal.

In the lawsuit’s bill of complaint , Nebraska says it initiated the building effort in 2022, including initial land acquisition talks with Colorado landowners in the projected canal area and “communicated no fewer than ten times between October 2022 and June 2025” with Colorado’s legal and technical representatives.

“Despite Nebraska’s best efforts to secure cooperation, Colorado has stonewalled and opposed Nebraska at every step,” the complaint reads.

Meanwhile, Colorado says there’s been no canal effort to block.

“For the century plus that this compact has been in place, Nebraska has declined to build such a canal,” Weiser said. “They have taken only the most preliminary steps thus far and there is a significant permitting process they will have to go through if they are serious. Many of these steps they have yet to do.”

Nebraska’s Oct. 29 request to the Supreme Court calls earlier such claims made Weiser and others untrue.

“Nebraska has spent millions of dollars on designs, permitting, legal and consulting fees, right-of-way investigations, and infrastructure engineering for the Canal,” the request document reads. “The design is substantially developed, and all major engineering decisions have been made. Nebraska has already acquired 80 acres in Colorado to facilitate Canal construction.”

Question of State-to-State Eminent Domain

Those Colorado acres came from one landowner who sold to Nebraska after it reached out to landowners along the proposed route in late 2022. While the lawsuit document characterized this initial outreach as amiable with Colorado landowners, saying it offered six Colorado landowners 115% of fair market value for their properties, Colorado characterized Nebraska’s later interactions — which included threats of condemnation — as threatening.

Ullman told committee members, “We are aware that [Nebraska] made these offers and threats of condemnation to a limited group of landowners at the location where the head gate of the canal was going to be, not along the 13 additional miles of canal that is necessary.”

Colorado state Sen. Byron Pelton (R-District 1), who represents the area where the Perkins County Canal would go, said the situation has been hard on those in his agriculture-dependent district.

“They are concerned about where their water is coming from,” he said. Pelton added that “$4.6 billion is generated with agriculture just in my district alone, and that’s because of the South Platte River and the Republican River basin.”

But he also questioned the seriousness of Nebraska’s negotiation efforts in light of the threats of eminent domain against Colorado farmers, ranchers and growers.

“It has been my experience growing up farming and ranching my entire life that whenever you walk into somebody’s property, walk into somebody’s place of business, and threaten eminent domain, everything shuts down — there is no more negotiation,” he said. “[Nebraska has] done nothing but threaten eminent domain from the very beginning.”

With some limitations, however, the compact grants Nebraska “the right to acquire by purchase, prescription, or the exercise of eminent domain” lands and easements necessary for the canal. In its lawsuit, Nebraska recognized that element of the compact as “exceptional.” It nonetheless asserts that it had moved to exerting this right only after meeting with Colorado landowners and met with “little success.”

Even though the right of eminent domain is in the compact, Weiser described it as potentially opening up “some novel, unprecedented territory” should the canal effort move forward.

“If this process is to get started — the eminent domain process, the condemnation process — that will generate some legal question,” Weiser said. “Our position is Colorado’s law of eminent domain is the only eminent domain law that applies in the state of Colorado.”

Remember the Sugar Mill: Water Shortfall Looms Over Texas Ag

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 17:06:02 GMT

In February 2024, the board of directors of Rio Grande Valley Sugar Growers Inc. announced Texas’ last sugar mill would close. That sugar cane harvest and milling season was to be the Santa Rosa mill’s last.

Why? Mexico had starved the area for irrigation water.

“For over 30 years, farmers in South Texas have been battling with Mexico’s failure to comply with the provisions of the 1944 Water Treaty between the U.S. and Mexico that governs water sharing between the two nations on the Colorado River and the Lower Rio Grande,” the board wrote in its Feb. 22, 2024, announcement .

“We regret the impact our closure will have on communities across the Valley, especially those closest to the mill, La Villa, Santa Rosa, and Edcouch,” it added. The board described the mill as supporting up to 100 local sugar cane growers and employing “over 500 full-time and seasonal workers annually.”

There are two months remaining in the current five-year water cycle in the 1944 treaty, and Mexico hasn’t delivered even half of the water it owes. While it will likely send some additional water this cycle, it probably won’t make up the total.

The lack of full water deliveries will hit growers in the area hard, according to experts. But the lack of water will also hit the industries that support agriculture — and the people who work in those industries or supply them.

In one way or another, experts advise to remember the sugar mill.

Short- and Long-Term Impact on Growers

As produce growers in the Rio Grande Valley look to the prospect of a fourth year of water shortages in 2026, Dante Galeazzi, president and CEO of the Texas International Produce Association, says they will have to make some tough decisions soon.

“They’ve got to decide ‘what am I going to plant?’” he says. “We are sitting just barely better than we were last year at the same time. Not a whole lot better; we still don’t have the water we need to put in a full crop.”

The more distant future is more concerning, however.

“The longer term is perhaps an even more bleak picture for our farmers, unfortunately,” Galeazzi says. He points to the lessons of COVID when it came to big disruptions on supply chains and how markets don’t just magically rematerialize when the stressor goes away.

“If our industry is on average producing 30% less, that means someone else’s region picked up 30% more business. So, when we do get water — and we will have a hurricane and we will get water down here — we will have to fight tooth and nail to get any additional business we can. That really, in my opinion, is the big concern.”

But with growers being water-stressed for so long, that usually also means being profit-stressed.

“Folks down here aren’t all going to have the money to go out and reestablish market share, so that means they’re going to have an uphill battle trying to reclaim that space in the marketplace,” he says.

Impacting the Ecosystem of Agricultural Production

That dynamic applies to more than just growers, however.

“Everyone that goes into the ecosystem of agricultural production are all impacted by this,” Galeazzi says. This can be anyone from seed and chemical companies to the companies that make the boxes, pallets, and packaging for produce. He gave the example of trucking companies: “If they don’t have people to truck for, they’re out of business.”

Similarly, he highlighted the massive infrastructure that goes into making the H-2A program function smoothly — workman’s comp, staffing agencies, buses, housing — as an example of what can be lost.

Lucas Gregory, associate director and chief science officer of the Texas Water Resources Institute, explains the interconnected dynamic in the context of the sugar mill.

“If you have an irrigated operation, like a citrus grove or sugar cane, that has to have water, and if that water is not there, that’s it,” he says. “That’s what happened to sugar cane industry. There was not enough volume that could be guaranteed to keep the mill viable. So, the mill closed, and now with no mill, no sugar cane.”

A recent review by Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service attempted to quantify what the impact of the lack of water deliveries from Mexico on citrus and vegetables in the area. The review estimates the region would lose $358.6 million annually and 6,079 total jobs lacking irrigation water.

“It’s a domino effect that’s felt within the community,” Galeazzi says. “In the four counties that make up the [Rio Grande Valley], something like 56% of the population lives outside municipal limits. That’s a lot of people who are going to be tied into agriculture in the rural community. Those are the guys who are going to get hit on top of the farmers.”

Impact on Irrigation Districts and Beyond

The effect of low water deliveries from Mexico is also real for irrigation districts.

Sonny Hinojosa, current water advocate and former general manager at the Hidalgo County Irrigation District No. 2 in San Juan, Texas, explains that irrigation districts in the state have two sources of revenue: the water delivery charge and a flat rate assessment. But both come down to delivering water.

“So, if we don’t have the water, we’re not generating revenue, and you have to start laying people off, and we don’t have money for improvements or maintenance,” he says.

That is the situation playing out in Delta Lake Irrigation District in Edcouch, Texas.

“That’s a big majority of my revenue to keep the doors open here and to keep my employees working and buying equipment,” says Troy Allen, the district’s general manager. “We normally rely on selling at least 80,000 to 120,000 acre feet of water annually to stay alive. And last year was a very, very tough year for us; we sold just a little under 30,000 acre feet worth of water.”

When speaking to The Packer in mid-August, he said the district has only sold 12,000 acre feet this year.

“We’ve really had to tighten our belts to survive,” he adds, explaining that his district usually employs between 51 to 55 people, but now only has 37. He says that, even with how tied into agriculture the region is, many people don’t realize “if we don’t survive, then the farming industry doesn’t survive.”

Hinojosa similarly described irrigation districts as little-known but essential entities in the Texas political landscape.

“We fall between the cracks. Municipalities get all the attention because of the population,” he says.

But negative impacts to irrigation districts are not just a farming issue; they also serve municipalities. Allen says his district serves a few small municipalities, though often at a loss. Galeazzi describes the whole network that depends on water from Mexico as likely to face adjacent economic impacts.

“If the irrigation company has no water, those guys are out of jobs. That infrastructure doesn’t get reinvestment, doesn’t get updated or modernized, further dilapidates, creates further inefficiencies,” he says. “That’s that adjacent community, that adjacent economic downturn, that’s happening as a result of this water scarcity the longer that it goes on in our region.”

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Mexico Probably Won’t Deliver All the Water it Owes

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 14:34:58 GMT

Mexico has two months left to deliver almost 1 million acre-feet of water to the U.S., but all that water probably won’t be coming, according to U.S. experts.

“Barring some kind of tropical system, that’s not going to happen,” says Sonny Hinojosa, current water advocate and former general manager at the Hidalgo County Irrigation District No. 2 in San Juan, Texas.

According to the 1944 treaty that governs water sharing between the U.S. and Mexico , Mexico must deliver 1.75 million acre-feet of water from the Rio Grande into Texas every five years. The current cycle ends October 25. As of Aug. 25, it only delivered 747,982 acre-feet , 43% of the total.

“The only thing that can bail Mexico out is a tropical system,” Hinojosa says. “Now, this is a monsoon season in northwest Mexico and west Texas, so we’re still hopeful to get some precipitation, but that still may or may not be enough to get us 100% of the water that we need.”

The deliveries of water from Mexico the the U.S. on the Rio Grande as of Aug. 25, 2025, from the International Boundary and Water Commission.

(Chart from International Boundary and Water Commission)

Hoping for a hurricane

Ideally, Mexico should deliver 350,000 acre-feet of water to the Rio Grande for Texas annually to reach the five-year total of 1.75 million acre-feet. But the 1944 treaty allows deliveries to run on the five-year cycle in the case of extraordinary drought. Mexico has been citing this provision and delivering water later and later in the cycle , often getting into “water debt” by not delivering enough on time.

In the past few cycles, late-cycle hurricanes bumped up deliveries. In the last cycle, which ended on Oct. 24, 2020, Mexico made the total 1.75 million acre-feet in the last days due to a heavy weather event.

The last time Mexico delivered roughly a million-acre feet of water in a couple months — what’s needed now — was at the end of 2010 as a result of Hurricane Alex that hit Mexico in late June.

“That’s the last time our reservoirs were full,” Hinojosa says.

The recent history of water delivery cycles from Mexico to the U.S. on the Rio Grande as recorded by the International Boundary and Water Commission. The mostly-vertical lime green line on the far left of the chart is shows the impact of Hurricane Alex in 2010.

(Chart from the International Boundary and Water Commission)

Alex was a just-in-time hurricane for Texas as well. Hinojosa explains those full reservoirs in late 2010 protected the state’s agriculture while it was deep in drought in 2011 and 2012. But by 2013, the water had again run out.

“It’s horrible to hope for a hurricane, but sometimes it seems to be what we need to get us caught up,” says Troy Allen, general manager of the Delta Lake Irrigation District in Edcouch, Texas.

“We don’t want the devastating ones that kill people,” he adds. “But if we do not get a hurricane this year in the watershed area, it’s going to be very rough come next year.”

Lucas Gregory, associate director and chief science officer of the Texas Water Resources Institute, says the best-case scenario “would be for a system to move pretty far inland and rain up in the mountains, in Chihuahua and the Rio Conchos watershed. That’s upstream of Amistad [International Reservoir], and that’s where the best storage capacity is.”

It’s not just a drought problem

However, there’s far more than drought going on in the situation between Mexico and Texas.

Gregory highlights issues such as growing metro populations on both sides of the Rio Grande and the impacts of climate change as contributing factors.

“But the ability of Mexico to store water in country is improved,” he adds. “They’ve built a lot more reservoirs in more recent history than the U.S. has, so now they can actually hold that water there and use it for themselves.”

Hinojosa says Mexico has built eight reservoirs since the 1944 treaty. Most were built along the Rio Conchos, a major tributary that delivers a lot of water to the Rio Grande — or used to, he says.

“Now they’re capturing it and using all the water for their expanded irrigation,” Gregory adds. “They’re basically irrigating desert with our water.”

Every source The Packer talked to pointed to the expansion of Mexico’s agriculture as a reason the U.S. is not getting the water it’s owed. This is particularly the case in the dry state of Chihuahua, and especially problematic with permanent, water-hungry crops like pecans.

Hinojosa points to the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement as when the problems started.

“It opened the doors for Mexico, mainly Chihuahua, to expand their irrigated agriculture into the desert using water that used to flow into the Rio Grande,” he explains.

“They’re using our water, and I say ‘our water’ because it’s rightfully ours,” he continues. “They’re capturing that water, storing it, using it to grow crops and then bringing them to the U.S. for us. And they’re killing our farmers. They’re killing our market.”

The impact on Texas growers

Since Mexico has only delivered roughly two years’ worth of water over the course of five years, Texas farmers and growers have been in a tough place for a while. Allen explains that his growers have been “on allocation” since April of 2023, while others in neighboring irrigation districts have enforced it since 2022.

“Meaning that they’ve told their farmers they are only going to get X number of irrigations,” he says. He calls the situation unprecedented in his 22 years at the district.

“It’s been very difficult for my farmers,” he adds, saying it is especially “looking pretty scary for the citrus farmers.”

Dante Galeazzi, president and CEO of the Texas International Produce Association, says Texas produce growers in particular are going to have to make some tough decisions.

“What it means this coming season is our growers are going to continue to veer away from water-intensive crops,” he says. “They’re not going to put in broccoli. They’re not going to put in celery. They’re probably not going to take a lot of chances on new commodities. They’re going to double down on what they know works.”

Those produce standbys will likely be crops like cabbage, onions, carrots and established citrus like oranges and grapefruit, he says. But the potential loss of produce diversity comes with its own problems.

“The diversity, the variety, the trying new things — that’s what has always helped South Texas be a region that provides commercial volumes of fresh fruits and vegetables,” Galeazzi stresses. But, without assurances about water availability, growers will likely stay in the safe lane, he adds.

“The safe lane is great, but the safe lane isn’t always profitable, and that’s challenging because now you’re coming off of two years where profits have been cut into if there’s even profits. And now, you’re about to go into year three of pretty similar conditions. It’s gut wrenching.”

What’s likely to happen in the next two months

Though Texas probably won’t get the full volume of water owed by Mexico, it will likely get some additional water this cycle. It might even amount to more than the usual annual delivery.

In an agreement signed between the U.S. State Department and Mexico in late April , Mexico pledged to deliver 324,000 to 420,000 acre-feet between the signing and October. That’s roughly a year’s worth of water delivered in five months. These deliveries are on top of the 110,000 acre-feet Mexico had delivered since the start of the current water year that started Oct. 25, 2024 and late April 2025.

If realized, the April agreement will bring the total deliveries for the current water year to 434,000 to 530,000 acre-feet, and the total five-year cycle deliveries between 854,000 and 950,000 acre-feet.

“Mexico has delivered 60.8% of the minimum that they said they would, so they’re on target to deliver this minimum of 324,000 acre feet,” Hinojosa says. “By the time this current cycle ends, it still leaves them with a deficit, but nonetheless, it has brought us some water in in recent history.”

Hinojosa praises the current administration for putting pressure on Mexico to achieve the April agreement that actually seems to be happening.

“I’ve been in this business for 38 years, and I’ve never known Mexico to do anything voluntarily before a cycle ends,” he says. “There’s a lot of pressure being put on Mexico, and that’s why they made these targets of delivering water to the U.S. before this current cycle ends.”

Needs for the future

More pressure is going to be needed to prevent this situation from repeating in the future, sources say.

“[Our administration is] going to have to implement something that puts pressure on Mexico that’s not tied to water,” Allen opines. That might mean tariffs or inclusion into the USMCA renegotiation, but whatever it is, it needs to spur Mexico to make good on their delivery requirements.

“Mexico could have fulfilled and caught up to what they owed us in 2022 because their reservoirs were full. They had a little over 3 million acre-feet in storage, and they still were over a year behind at that point in time,” Allen says. “But they didn’t deliver any of that water to the U.S.”

Hinojosa says a mindset change is needed in Mexico.

“We need Mexico to treat us, the United States, as we treat them on the Colorado River,” he says. The same 1944 treaty that dictate’s Mexico’s water deliveries to the U.S. on the Rio Grande also dictates the U.S.’s deliveries of water to Mexico on the Colorado River.

He says the U.S. takes Mexico’s allocation “off the top” of the available water in the Colorado River, then divides the rest among the seven U.S. states that rely on it. But Mexico does not return the favor, he adds.

“That has to change,” Hinojosa says. “Mexico needs to recognize that the treaty calls for a minimum delivery to United States of 350,000 acre-feet per year — that’s a minimum delivery — and they need to set that water aside and deliver that water to United States.”

Galeazzi also advocates for a mindset change here in the U.S. around not only Texas’ water issues with Mexico, but all of the country’s water issues. He describes the U.S. as having put water infrastructure on the back burner, adding that the country has “hamstrung ourselves” with excessive and burdensome regulations.

“We absolutely need to pressure Mexico,” he says. “But, if we want to prevent this from happening, the other thing we have to do is we — as a region, a state and a country — need to get serious and make some very big investments in the infrastructure of water.”

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Microsoft-Partnered Project Funds Improved Irrigation in CA

Thu, 10 Jul 2025 21:37:23 GMT

In early summer, Kilimo — a Latin America-based climatech company focused on improving agricultural water security — announced it had launched an irrigation improvement project in California’s Central Valley in partnership with Microsoft and Netafim.

According to Kilimo, the farms participating in the new Central Valley project raise forage crops such as winter grass and summer silage corn, wheat and tomatoes. Like previous similar projects with Microsoft in Chile and Mexico, the new project will transition participating farmers currently using flood irrigation to drip irrigation.

“The conversion to drip irrigation is going to be fully financed by us and the corporate partner,” says Jairo Trad, CEO and co-founder of Kilimo. He stresses that this partnership is quite unique: “This is a private stakeholder financing another private stakeholder without the government intervening.”

Based on past results in earlier projects, Kilimo estimates the water savings could approach 50%.

Microsoft’s involvement in the project is part of its commitment to becoming water positive by 2030 . This commitment includes supporting projects that replenish more water than the company consumes.

“We’re thrilled to collaborate with Kilimo and Netafim to support farmers in saving water in California’s Central Valley,” says Eliza Roberts, water lead at Microsoft, in a news release. “Irrigation conversion is a critical solution that preserves water and supports farmers in combating climate challenges.”

California irrigation ripe for improvement

Trad explains that Microsoft’s partnership on projects like the new Central Valley one is not just corporate responsibility, but pragmatic and proactive.

“Microsoft, like many other tech companies, understands that they have risk tied to water,” he says, giving examples like data centers that need water for cooling or manufacturing companies that use water in their processes. “Most of the water we use is in agriculture, so if you want to invest in reducing water risk, you have to work in the agricultural sector.”

As of 2023, an impressive 4.36 million acres (52.6%) of California’s 7.76 million acres of irrigated cropland were already under some form of drip or similarly efficient irrigation system. Across the country, there were only 6.43 million total acres under such systems, meaning California represented roughly two-thirds of the country’s total.

However, California also used 22.6 million acre feet of irrigation water — over three times that of the next-highest irrigator, Nebraska at 6.8 maf — making it the largest user of irrigation water in the country. It also had 2.95 million acres irrigated via gravity systems, which include various forms of flood irrigation.

Trad positions using flood irrigation is an example of a low-value use of water.

“Water is perpetually undervalued, even in areas where water is extremely scarce like California,” he says. It’s not that agriculture should have to pay more, he adds. “The question is: How can we realign incentives?”

Private-private partnerships

That is what partnerships like this one are trying to do, according to Trad. He describes such efforts as bringing new financing opportunities to farmers to improve their irrigation systems. But to get investments from companies like Microsoft, the water savings that might come from the switch must be measured and well documented. That’s where Kilimo comes in, Trad says.

“We have developed a solution and a set of methodologies that allow us to measure the volumetric water benefits in a way that is scalable, secure, comparable and that allows companies to be sure that the investment they are doing is well used and well measured,” he says.

The value proposition for participating farmers is great, too, he adds.

“They get a fully paid irrigation system,” he summarizes. “What we ask for in return — and this is us, not Microsoft — is access to the data. How much are you irrigating? So, we can prove that you are saving water.”

That and maintenance of the new equipment is an “extremely light” ask, Trad says. He compares it to the strings attached to government financing. He also calls this style of private-private partnership between water users and corporate organizations looking to mitigate their water risk an important growing trend.

“Companies are investing heavily in this,” he says. “This is private stakeholders engaging in reshaping how other private stakeholders are using water because they think that is going to be good for them too. And that’s great! What we need is for more people to do this.”

Irrigators Are Water Supply Friends … if You Listen

Tue, 10 Jun 2025 20:05:00 GMT

DENVER — Speaking at the American Water Works Association’s Annual Conference and Exposition conference on June 9, Dixie Poteet, a graduate research assistant at Colorado State University’s water resources engineering, told fellow water workers that irrigators can be “friends for future water supply planning.”

She explained the issue of buy and dry — where water rights are sold away from historically agricultural land, usually to a local municipality — to her largely non-agricultural audience. She also pointed out that stripping the water rights from agricultural land usually precedes it being removed from production.

“The classic picture of that is when a farm field gets turned into multiple houses or a subdivision,” she said. “Typically, this is blamed on growing urban water demands or population,” she added.

Alternatives to buy and dry (and farm goodbyes)

Given the generally negative impact on agriculture and rural communities, many in production resist buy-and-dry strategies. But buy and dry isn’t the only way to temporarily offset a municipality’s water needs, Poteet said. Water leasing, under various names — including collaborative water sharing agreements or alternative transfer methods — is a viable alternative.

“These are strategies and agreements that utilize temporary lease or transfer of water to nearby or interested entities,” Poteet explained. Farmers “can temporarily lease that water to a nearby municipality or party and get paid at or above market value, hopefully, so that they offset the cost of not having that water to produce with and perhaps meeting the water needs of those nearby.”

But these strategies are poorly utilized, Poteet said. As part of her ongoing Ph.D. research efforts, she started by trying to find out why.

“We have a solution, supposedly, but why isn’t it more widely implemented?” she said. “I started my Ph.D. saying: Why don’t we talk to the farmers?”

Listening to the farmers

Through listening sessions and interviews with Colorado farmers and ranchers as part of her research, Poteet found a collection of barriers to the adoption of water leasing programs. These included knowledge issues (e.g. “what is a CWSA/ATM?”), support issues (e.g. “Who do I go to to learn more?”) and trust issues among stakeholders.

“There has to be trust between stakeholders, and there’s often a perceived power imbalance: us versus them, east slope versus west slope, urban versus rural ag, big ag versus small ag, that ditch versus my ditch,” Poteet offered as an example.

But the key Poteet stressed to the audience of AWWA members — water professionals across industries such as water utilities, wastewater treatment, scientists, environmental advocates and irrigation districts — was that working with agricultural water users requires trust and relationship building. That starts with keeping their needs in mind.

“I had someone tell me ‘I had an irrigation leak over the weekend; I don’t have time to think about how much I can sell my water right for if I’m trying to track down a leak and replace the pipe,’” Poteet said. “That is a key thing to think about when proposing solutions; these are people’s livelihoods where their lives revolve around if irrigation turns on.”

She added that, according to her research, there are agricultural water users who are actively interested in temporary water leasing. But working together for water supply planning at the ag-urban interface comes down to listening.

“We’re talking about irrigators as friends,” she said. “Part of being a good friend with irrigators and having key collaboration is to actually listen.”

Startup brings smart irrigation retrofits to growers

Thu, 22 May 2025 18:53:09 GMT

Arthur Chen, CEO and co-founder of the irrigation startup Verdi, came from a farming family.

“I was actually the first generation that didn’t have to farm growing up and that’s ironically what got me very interested in agriculture,” he said.

Chen co-founded Verdi in 2020 with fellow Canadian entrepreneur Roman Kozak. The company produces devices that can retrofit existing irrigation infrastructure into an app-connected automated irrigation system. Chen said growers currently using Verdi’s devices liken them to smart home devices, but for watering specialty crops.

With the startup, Chen brought his engineering training to bear on growers’ pain points around irrigation. He said the company is especially focused on the adoption of automation technology.

“When you talk to any grower, they tend to understand the benefits of automated irrigation,” he told The Packer, citing labor and water savings being key. “But about 95% of them we found still prefer not to use automation. They prefer to do things manually instead. As we dug into it, we realized that it’s because automation is really expensive and tends to be hard to set up.”

Chen said his company is trying to help growers overcome those adoption barriers by making an easy-to-install automation solution.

“We can retrofit to a wide variety of different equipment. If you have a valve, for example, we can retrofit that to turn it into a smart valve,” he explained. “Really all it takes is you have to plug in a few wires in order for that valve to be controlled remotely. Then you scan a QR code on our devices, and that connects it to the internet just by scanning it.”

Chen said the devices can be applied to a wide variety of devices, including pumps or even “a single piece of drip tube if you want row-level irrigation control or monitoring.”

To date, the company has devices in over 5,000 acres of mostly vineyards and fruit and nut orchards in North America, but the company’s next milestone is getting into 10,000 acres, he said.

New financing allows for expansion

Verdi announced its latest seed round raised $6.5 million Canadian ($4.7 million U.S.) May 15. Chen said the financing will allow Verdi to expand its products and reach more growers.

“It really allows us to continue what we’ve been doing with co-developing this alongside growers in the field,” he told The Packer. “There is a lot of outside capital that has come into agriculture that is more speculative. What we’ve focused on with this financing is to work with strategic partners, partners who have a vested interest in the success of growers.”

SVG Ventures led the funding round.

“We invested in Verdi because they’re solving one of agriculture’s biggest challenges — climate resilience — through a solution that is not only innovative but also practical and scalable,” SVG Ventures CEO John Hartnett said in Verdi’s news release about the seed round. “Their ability to integrate with existing farm infrastructure makes their platform a game changer for growers looking to stay competitive in a changing world.”

In addition to the goal of expanding into 10,000 acres, Chen said Verdi is aiming to expand into different crops.

“We work with over 20 different types of crops right now, so we are quite agnostic,” he said. “The new one that we’ve gotten into, especially with this new round of financing, is going to vegetable crops. So, [we’re] making sure we’re developing this in the right way that serves growers in that particular vertical.”

He added that the company’s current focus is on working with growers who already use drip or sprinkler irrigation, since that infrastructure can most benefit from retrofitting. However, Verdi is looking to expand to meet other grower needs too.

“A really big piece of that is really leaning into the data that growers can get from various sources, but actually turning it into something actionable for them,” Chen said. “That’s a big focus for us in terms of our software development.”

Growers must solve California's water challenges

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 06:45:23 GMT

I visited in late August with Matt Angell about California San Joaquin Valley water issues.

Angell is a chairman of San Joaquin Resource Conservation District 9, is a managing partner at Pacific Farming Co., and also is managing director of Madera Pumps.
The conversation included discussion of California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act and what that will require of growers in the years ahead.

Angell said the San Joaquin Valley is the source of incredible productivity.

“The San Joaquin Valley is probably the strongest growing region on the planet,” he said, noting that the valley is estimated to produce 58% of the ag value in California about 7% of the value of U.S. agriculture.

He described his history of farming in the valley, his involvement in soil moisture monitoring technology and finally investing in a pump company that drills water wells in the San Joaquin Valley.

Water is what everybody is talking about and Angell said California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act is the evolution of more than 100 years of water law.

The law gives local control to groundwater districts to create a path to water balance and prevent overdraft of ground water. “I think (the law) had to happen because it took the politics out of water,” Angell said.

It now is up to growers to figure out how find water balance, or the state will do it, he said. While the hard deadline is 2050, the need to create solutions that will lead to water balance is immediate.

“At end of the day, we need to...figure out our own problems,” he said. “The real problem is not the California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA);the real problem is groundwater overdraft.”

Water allocation leaves California growers dry

The Packer’s Fresh Talk

Producers Invest in Water Infrastructure

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 05:58:35 GMT

Producers invest in water infrastructure to control risk

Mother Nature’s highly unreliable temperament in recent years is prompting farmers to take matters into their own hands. Center-pivot irrigation systems, once thought to be suitable only
for Kansas, Nebraska or California’s San Joaquin Valley, are going up in the eastern Corn Belt.

“Irrigated land comprises 30% of Lawrence County, Ill.’s total acreage, but 60% to 65% in Russell and Allison townships,” says Norm Kocher, chairman of the Russell-Allison Water Authority, farmer and dealer for T-L Irrigation. “That’s double the amount in the two townships from 10 years ago.” That’s an extreme case, but it puts numbers to the brisk adoption rate.

“For Reinke, the market has increased rapidly in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio and western Tennessee,” says Tim Goldhammer, Reinke Mfg.’s vice president of marketing. “We’ve added dealers in those high-demand areas.”

Several factors—such as high-priced grain, rising input costs, sky-high land values and rents, and, more often than not, quirky weather—are working in concert to drive the trend to irrigate.

The cost of erecting a center-pivot irrigation system varies significantly, says Rich Panowicz, vice president of North American sales for Valley Irrigation. As a rule of thumb, a total irrigation installation for 130 acres requires an investment of approximately $1,000 per acre, plus costs for underground pipe and electrical tie-ins. The cost of drilling a well can bring the price tag much higher, depending on how deep you need to go to reach water, he notes.

Tired of dealing with dry weather every year, Cecil, Ohio, producer Curt Potter invested in a new irrigation system earlier this year. The ability to water when needed did the trick—he realized a 100 bu. per acre difference between irrigated and nonirrigated acres. After an initial investment of $1,100 per acre, the estimated costs have been just a few dollars per acre.

Get started. Before you grab your checkbook, there are several factors to consider to determine if irrigation is right for you, says Lyndon Kelley, an irrigation specialist for Michigan State and Purdue universities.

First, Kelley says, you need water. Access differs dramatically by location, even within the same township.

“You need a water source that allows you to pump 500 gal. of water per minute for 100 acres for corn. That’s the bare minimum,” Kelley says.

At this rate, producers can generate 1" of water every four days, which is what corn requires. Soybeans need less water, so some producers with less than ideal volume might still be able to irrigate with scheduling changes. Corn and soybean peak water demand comes at different times, as well.

Second, what soil types do you have? Sandy loam soils respond well to irrigation, and sandy soils that are most vulnerable to drought are probably the best place to begin. That’s not to say that heavier soils should never be irrigated, however, and some producers who irrigated for the first time this year report excellent yield responses from soils with a denser profile.

Existing irrigators are also taking advantage of strong incomes to upgrade systems, Panowicz says. More growers are adding corner units to minimize the number of acres that are not reached by the center-pivot circle.

New technology, such as variable flow rates that take into account variations within a field, allows for finetuning of existing irrigation systems.

“As the cost of putting in a crop has increased in the past five years, farmers can’t afford to have a crop failure due to drought conditions even one or two years out of 10,” Panowicz adds.

Another factor driving irrigation’s renaissance is high-priced farmland, which is requiring farmers to reap every last bushel from fields before expanding, says Randy Wood, vice president of irrigation, sales and marketing for Lindsay Corporation.

“Irrigation is an efficient method of increasing yields,” he says. For example, if irrigation means an extra 100 bu. in yield (not the case every year), it means investing $1,000 with a rapid payoff, as opposed to paying as much as $8,000 an acre to buy land, assuming you can find any.

Other benefits. An irrigation system does more than just allow producers to boost yields. This fall, Potter’s soybeans, for example, had only 9% to 10% moisture. At harvest, he turned on the irrigation to achieve his desired 14% moisture.

Crop and livestock producer Steve Miller uses his new system to capture the value of the manure from his hog buildings. He can apply nitrogen throughout the year by mixing manure at a 4-to-1 ratio (water to manure).

“We can apply manure with no soil compaction, and we don’t lose any of manure’s nutrients,” says Miller, who farms near Bucyrus, Ohio.

At a loss about the logistics of manure irrigation at first, Miller estimates a 100 bu. per acre yield pop on fields that were irrigated this year. He is hoping for a modest 30 bu. per acre yield advantage over a 10-year period.

He plans to increase the number of acres irrigated in 2013. However, irrigation is not for every farmer in the Midwest, he admits. “It wouldn’t work a few miles from here,” he explains because of the difference in water accessibility.

Federal crop insurance was not a good investment for Sandborn, Ind., farmer Vaughn Huey, so he instead invested in irrigation for the first time. It worked to his advantage—he harvested 170 bu. more corn per acre on irrigated ground. “From June 1 to the end of July, I ran the unit 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I knew it would be a good investment. I just didn’t know it would be this good.”

Subsurface Water Systems Boost Yields

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 05:58:35 GMT

Subsurface water systems can boost yields, carry nutrients

Nebraska farmer Don Anthony started using subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) in 2006 on sections of his 1,200-acre corn and soybean farm in the Central Platte Valley. He began with a parcel of flat land that had a power line running diagonally through it.

Anthony had always used a centerpivot system, but a 1997 federal agreement affecting his state requires field corners untouched by pivots to be watered as well. Failing to irrigate those areas would result in the loss of their irrigated status, meaning they could never be irrigated again.

Since 2005, Anthony has added 250 to 300 acres of SDI, which delivers water to crop roots through a series of pipes and nozzles normally buried 10" to 14" below the surface. This year, one 80-acre section of corn—irrigated with 15" of water throughout the course of the growing season—yielded 188 bu. per acre.

“My experience in the past seven years with the pivot here versus drip across the road is that I’ll put on about twothirds to threefourths the amount of water with drip as I do with pivot and get the same yield,” Anthony says.

He’s not alone. The subsurface irrigation method, first adopted in the U.S. for vegetables, fruits and nuts, is supplementing and even replacing center-pivot systems for field crops. Representatives of three of the top SDI businesses—Netafim, the Toro Company and John Deere—say the system is attractive to farmers worldwide because of its potential to save water, boost yields and reduce fertilizer runoff.

Netafim is the world’s largest manufacturer of microirrigation equipment, including subsurface drip components. Michael Dowgert, Netafim USA communications director, attributes the increased interest in subsurface irrigation to GPS development.

“Now you are able to find the dripper lines,” Dowgert says. Subsurface irrigation has been in use since the 1970s, but its use with GPS started in the late 1990s.

Cotton tops the list of U.S. field crops most often used with subsurface. In the West Texas area, Dowgert says, close to half a million acres receive belowground irrigation. Corn ranks second, and SDI is being explored in states such as Nebraska, around the Ogallala Aquifer, where water scarcity is a key concern.

Just a few years ago, Netafim installed about 400 acres of subsurface systems in alfalfa, Dowgert says. This year, the company expects to install more than 4,000 acres for alfalfa alone.

While alfalfa often is flood-irrigated, using subsurface can remove stress on the plant and result in “fairly significant yield increases,” Dowgert says. Farmers can even irrigate the crop while harvesting it.

Interest grows. Hubert Frerich opened Eco-Drip Irrigation in Garden City, Texas, in the early 1980s after successfully irrigating his watermelon and cotton crops with a subsurface system. No high-producing wells existed in the area, so limited access to water made subsurface an efficient alternative, says Craig Hoelscher, who now co-owns the company along with three of Frerich’s children.

“It helps make every drop count,” notes Hoelscher, who adds that the system is also used to spoon-feed crops with fertilizer. Eco-Drip has installed as many subsurface acres in the past 10 years as it did in its first 20, totaling 200,000 acres. The company is getting more questions about subsurface systems and seeing a small pickup in demand across the central U.S.

Some farmers are still using systems that were installed more than 25 years ago, Hoelscher says. In 2009, he notes, researchers at Kansas State University found that emitters in a 20-year-old subsurface system were providing more than 90% of the water flow they originally offered. Fewer than 2% of Eco-Drip’s subsurface systems stop working, he says, and those that do often fail because of poor maintenance.

Technological advances will only make it easier to install and maintain subsurface systems.

“Right now it’s simple, but it’s going to get even more simple,” says Nir Aloni, chief agronomist for John Deere Water. He says adoption of SDI worldwide depends on four factors: climate, crop type, capital availability and equipment.

Farmers in northwest China, for example, have quickly adopted SDI for their corn and cotton crops, as it fits very well with their crop rotation and climate. Meanwhile, farmers in Southeast Asia might install drip tape that lasts for just a year in order to capitalize on water conservation benefits, and then install a longer-lasting system when money is available.

Farmers often purchase SDI equipment for 40-, 80- or 160-acre blocks or irregularly shaped fields, says Inge Bisconer, technical marketing and sales manager for the Toro Company’s microirrigation business. The company offers an extensive line of products, including microirrigation emission devices, pipelines, valves, controllers and filters for use in surface and subsurface crop applications.

Toro has developed computer design assist software, known as AquaFlow 3.0, that allows farmers to build a virtual drip system to maximize water use and optimize maintenance. An online tool called Payback Wizard from Toro allows farmers to plug in five pieces of information to determine how long it will take for them to pay for their subsurface system.

How it works. To install the system, a toolbar fitted with coils of drip tape is mounted on a tractor, which places the tape below-ground using shanks. The tape contains emitters that release water. Single rows of drip tape can be as long as a mile, Bisconer says, but are typically a quarter- or half-mile long. The tape can remain functional underground for up to 20 years.

Trenches are dug to accommodate larger pipes, which are connected to the mainline. The mainline, in turn, is hooked up to the filter and pump station. After the parts are connected, the system is flushed and pressure-tested before the trenches are filled and pipes are buried.

Water used in subsurface systems generally flows from a reservoir or well, Bisconer says. It is then pumped through filters that clean the liquid so the laterals don’t get clogged. Fertilizers might also be injected, along with chemicals that help maintain pipes.

This sand media filter system in Nebraska connects to an SDI system. Other components can include valves that control water flow to a specific field section.

Factors to consider. Subsurface irrigation isn’t for every acre. Square fields, for example, might be better served with a center-pivot system paired with SDI at the corners. Farmers in states with ample rainfall might not see the economic benefits realized by those in more arid states.

Cost should also be considered. Installing a drip-line system generally costs about $1,400 per acre, Netafim’s Dowgert says. That’s roughly twice the cost of installing a center-pivot system.

Gophers pose a major problem to subsurface systems. Infestations can reduce alfalfa yields up to 50%, Dowgert says, and fields already populated by gophers are not ideal candidates for SDI. In the event that the creatures create problems after subsurface is installed, farmers can try using a product such as Netafim’s Protect-T, a rodent repellent that is piped through the drip system.

Maintenance is a mixed bag. While winterization is required after harvest to flush pipes and reduce buildup from hard water, experts say a variety of automation options lets farmers control how much time they spend turning valves by hand.

Anthony, the Nebraska farmer, thinks SDI will help him maintain a healthy standard of living: The 62-yearold says he’s getting to the point where his body can’t handle the intensive labor required for the alternatives such as flood irrigation.

“This is one of the things that will probably extend my farming career,” Anthony says.

You can e-mail Nate Birt at nbirt@farmjournal.com .

For more information about subsurface drip irrigation and the products mentioned, visit www.FarmJournal.com/subsurface_irrigation