Rio Grande farmers have a unique relationship with irrigation technology
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esearchers at the Texas Water Resources Institute, or TWRI, recent ly completed a phase of research in the Rio Grande Coordinated Agricul ture Project. The effort looked at area farmers’ use of scientific irrigation scheduling technology and what prevents some from adopting it. “Irrigation scheduling is a science where we try to find out how much water is required at what time to achieve a certain crop yield goal,” said Ali Ajaz, Ph.D., AgriLife Extension program specialist for TWRI and investigator on the project. Ajaz explained that few farmers use scientific irrigation scheduling technology. Instead, many farmers across the country, and in the Rio Grande region in particular, still use conventional ways of determining when to irrigate their crops. This can be anything from the feel of the soil, to visu-
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Ag Mag THEAGMAG.ORG
BY KERRY HALLADAY
ally assessing the condition of the crops to even irrigating when neighbors irrigate. By contrast, scientific irrigation scheduling technology can integrate the use of soil and plant moisture sensing devices, weather data, computer modeling and other integrations of data into decision making. Such technologies can help farmers target their irrigation to the needs of the crop and the soil, thereby making them much more water efficient.
Surveying unique irrigators The team — which included Allen Berthold, Ph.D., TWRI assistant director; Taylor Olsovsky, TWRI research associate; and Dhruva Kathuria, Ph.D., former TWRI graduate research assistant — sent surveys out to 1,500 Rio Grande irrigators in Texas and New Mexico. “The survey generally asked about their irrigation scheduling methods and tools,
