Commodity Classic 2024

Irrigation Session

The Irrigation Association presented an irrigation session on March 1 during Commodity Classic in Houston, Texas, as part of the event’s Learning Center Session educational offerings. The session was sponsored by Reinke and will discuss discussed how growers understand and manage soil moisture. The session was included with Commodity Classic registration.

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Sustainable Irrigation: Responsible Practices That Reduce Costs While Improving Yield & Quality

Friday, March 1 | 12:30 p.m.-1:15 p.m.

In this session, presented by the Irrigation Association and sponsored by Reinke, Mike and Nick will be discussing how growers understand and manage soil moisture. We will start with a basic discussion of subsurface water, how it is stored in the soil and what portions of that stored water are available for plant use. From there, we will discuss current irrigation scheduling techniques and the inherent result of water over-application. Then we will pull from Nicks farming background and decades of using technology to monitor soil moisture and demonstrate how to use that information in determining the optimum irrigation application schedule and rate. Finally, we will discuss the technology hardware available for growers to schedule, operate and monitor irrigation equipment and some available cost-share programs to help fund the investment. In the end, we will be able to demonstrate how growers utilizing this different way of thinking can reduce the number of times irrigation water needs to be applied as well as the amount of water applied per cycle.

The benefits of adopting this methodology are reduced pumping costs, but we will also discuss how proper soil water management can result in increased yields and quantities, bringing the grower increased income.

Presenters | Nick Emanuel, CropMetrics and Mike Mills, Reinke Manufacturing