Innovative Extension Methods in the U.S. to Promote Irrigation Water Management

Rudnick, Daran R.; Stockton, Matthew C.; Taghvaeian, Saleh; Warren, Jason G.; Dukes, Michael D.; Kremen, Amy; Henry, Christopher G.; Aguilar, Jonathan; Ortiz, Brenda V.; Andales, Allan A.; Burr, Chuck; Qiao, Xin; Liang, Wei-zhen; Walthour, Steven; Amosson, Stephen H.

doi:10.13031/trans.13929

Cited by 7 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Extension's inconsistent success in guiding growers to adopt more efficient irrigation practices could be explained in part by the delivery method used. Historically, Extension programs were delivered via lectures, field days, information sheets and demonstrations of a practice [26]. Following program delivery, the typical next step for growers once they have determined the benefits outweigh the costs of a given practice is conducting on-farm trials of that practice as a final evaluation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing Agricultural Water Resources in the Southern Region: Perspectives of Crop Growers

Donovan,

Chanes,

Kadyampakeni

et al. 2024

Preprint

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The sustainability of agricultural commodities produced in the Southern U.S. under irrigation is increasingly at risk due to erratic rainfall patterns, inadequate water supplies and compromised water quality. This study assessed the needs of crop growers in the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Southern Region. The purpose was to identify growers’ critical water resource management concerns to identify research priorities from the perspective of growers in this region. To obtain this information, a questionnaire was developed and distributed to growers throughout the Southern Region in 2020. The final sample included 112 crop (row and specialty) production growers from the Southern Region. Overall, respondents named the water available to irrigate as the greatest water resource management priority. Within all the water availability priorities asked, respondents’ first choice was declining water supply in the future. Declining water supply and the cost of irrigating presently were the next most frequently named water availability priorities. Growers named both increasing the efficiency of irrigation and development of farming practices to improve soil moisture retention as the first and second focus of future irrigation research, respectively. These results will aid in strengthening existing and developing new initiatives for water research and Extension in this region.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing Agricultural Water Resources in the Southern Region: Perspectives of Crop Growers

Donovan,

Chanes,

Kadyampakeni

et al. 2024

Preprint

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“…Progress in irrigation scheduling in the U.S. was the topic of three Special Collection journal articles (Butts et al, 2020;King et al, 2020;Taghvaeian et al, 2020). The progression of Irrigator Pro, an irrigation scheduling decision support system (DSS), was discussed by Butts et al (2020).…”

Section: Irrigation Management (Strategies Scheduling and Modeling)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A review of agricultural irrigation scheduling progress within the last decade in the U.S., its current status, and its anticipated future was provided by Taghvaeian et al (2020). USDA-NASS survey data were used to illustrate that many irrigators continue to use qualitative measures to inform irrigation scheduling decisions, rather than quantitative, science-based tools.…”

Section: Irrigation Management (Strategies Scheduling and Modeling)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Innovative extension programs in the Great Plains and Southeast U.S. to promote improved irrigation management were described by Rudnick et al (2020). They reported that university extension is serving a larger number of irrigated farms as technology becomes more complex and the stress on water resources increases.…”

Section: Technology and Innovation (Sensors Technology Usage And Adoption Extension/education)mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Beyond 2020, Vision of the Future: Selected Papers from the Sixth Decennial National Irrigation Symposium

Lamm¹,

Dukes²,

Stone³

et al. 2021

Transactions of the ASABE

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HighlightsASABE/IA 6th National Irrigation Symposium includes 80 papers, with 36 introduced here in this Special Collection.Papers include current irrigation research about ET, management, turf systems, technology, humid region, water supply.Irrigation in the U.S. is growing more rapidly in humid regions, and pressurized irrigation continues to grow in usage.There has been much progress in irrigation science in the last decade, and the vision of the future looks bright.Abstract. This article introduces the ASABE Special Collection associated with the 6th Decennial National Irrigation Symposium: Beyond 2020, Vision of the Future. This U.S. symposium, jointly sponsored by ASABE and the Irrigation Association in December 2021, was postponed from 2020 due to the pandemic and consists of approximately 80 presentations, of which 36 were accepted as journal articles for this Special Collection. Irrigated land area appears to be growing slightly in the U.S. but is shifting geographically somewhat toward humid regions. Pressurized irrigation continues to grow, and gravity-fed irrigation continues to decline. Competition for stressed water resources among diverse water users remains great, and smaller numbers of irrigation scientists are available to meet the informational needs. Improved ability to acquire, assess, and use water and crop information helps to meet these challenges. This article discusses irrigation research progress in evapotranspiration (ET), irrigation management, turf systems, sensors and technologies, irrigation strategies in the humid region, and water supply. Challenges and opportunities continue to exist for irrigation in the U.S., but progress in the last decade has been steady, and a good vision for the future of irrigation beyond 2020 is anticipated. Keywords: Evapotranspiration, Irrigation, Irrigation management, Irrigation scheduling, Irrigation systems, Turf and landscape irrigation.

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“…Studies have indicated that low adoption occurs because farmers either lack information on costs and benefits or they do not have positive beliefs and attitudes towards their use of the technology (Cartwright et al, 2019;O'Shaughnessy et al, 2019). Researchers and irrigation industry recognize the complexity of implementing these practices and suggest fostering the creation of communities or peer-to-peer networks of producers to exchange knowledge and build skills (Rudnick et al, 2020), as well as training crop consultants and equipment dealers to help with implementation and troubleshooting (O'Shaughnessy et al, 2019). The group of scientists working on this study firmly believe that the adoption of precision irrigation strategies could increase if farmers are provided with information on implementation costs and benefits.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A comparison of precision and conventional irrigation in corn production in Southeast Alabama

et al. 2022

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Adoption of water-conservation irrigation practices could potentially reduce water and energy use and increase profitability, as well as protect the environment. Precision irrigation consisting of soil sensors (SS) for irrigation scheduling and variable rate irrigation (VRI) was compared with conventional uniform irrigation (URI). The study was conducted in South Alabama during the 2018 and 2019 corn growing seasons. The SS-VRI and URI treatments spanned the length of the field and were compared across five different management zones (MZ) that exhibited soil and terrain differences. Soil water tension sensors were installed on each MZ-treatment area to monitor hourly soil water changes. Results showed that on the two zones covering 55% of the study field, MZ 1 and MZ 2, the SS-VRI treatment, on a two-year average, resulted in 26% less irrigation water applied compared to the URI treatment; however, there were no statistical differences between yields or yield variability among treatments. Even though in MZ 4, there was not a substantial difference in irrigation water applied among treatments, soil sensors increased the precision of irrigation rate determination during the peak of high crop water demand. Findings from this study showed that as rainfall amount and distribution change over a crop growing period, soil sensor-based irrigation scheduling could be used to prevent over- or under irrigation. With proper management, the combination of soil sensors and VRI provides farmers with the opportunity to reduce water use, while increasing or maintaining yields; however, farmers must consider the investment and operating costs relative to the benefits.

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Innovative Extension Methods in the U.S. to Promote Irrigation Water Management

Cited by 7 publications

References 11 publications

Managing Agricultural Water Resources in the Southern Region: Perspectives of Crop Growers

Managing Agricultural Water Resources in the Southern Region: Perspectives of Crop Growers

Beyond 2020, Vision of the Future: Selected Papers from the Sixth Decennial National Irrigation Symposium

A comparison of precision and conventional irrigation in corn production in Southeast Alabama

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