Flow Meters, Sprinkler Packages and Water Reporting
We are blessed in Michigan during the growing season to get some reasonable precipitation and have access to more freshwater than most. Are you getting the most from your irrigation system? Do you know the gallons per minute entering your system? Do you feel confident that you are maximizing plant yield by getting the right amount of water across your irrigated fields?
Flow Meters & Sprinkler Packages
Sprinkler charts are developed with an input gallons per minute (GPM). Over time things wear and some change is inevitable. Sprinkler packages typically last 8 to 10 years in many Michigan systems. Are yours nearing that time in service? Do you have a flow meter in your system? If not, have you had the flow rate checked in a few years? As Randy Dowdy stated at our recent customer day, “Don’t guess, you need to know to get better.” You can do a better job irrigating your fields if you know the gallons per minute delivered to your system. Accurate information will make the water delivered through your sprinkler package more precise. If you are or will be using variable rate irrigation, it is even more critical.
Preventing over or underwatering will improve crop performance. Update those sprinkler charts. While remote pivot control is a valuable tool, go to the field and make at least a visual check of your pivots and sprinklers early in the season and then again before the crop canopy covers sprinklers on drops. Leaking gaskets, broken or damaged sprinklers and improperly operating end guns can be noticed and resolved. If your package does not include pressure regulators, it probably should.
Better uniformity and potentially lower pumping costs are real. A secondary end gun is another option to improve water distribution at the end of iron. With end guns typically sending 80% of the water to the last 20% of the range, a secondary end gun helps fill in the first 50 to 75 feet with some of that water.
Flow Meters & Water Reporting
Knowing the GPM will also help you be more accurate with water reporting. Reporting accurate data on your annual water reporting will likely be important as more stress is placed on our water supply. Test wells near your irrigation wells may be a good idea also. Having a flow meter on your irrigation system along with a proximal test well to collect data, may prove to provide very valuable information if future neighbors start asking for water sharing under riparian rights.
Impact
Center pivot irrigation is a long-term investment in your farm. It takes planning and infrastructure development and is getting more expensive but has the potential to be very valuable as a tool in your bag. How quick would you be to adjust your planter if two of the rows were dropping 3 seeds or none? Getting more yield per acre will continue to be a driver as farmland is used for other purposes. Getting more yield per acre will be needed to keep margins up. I know you love to farm, but it sure helps when you make a few bucks. Maximizing your returns by optimizing your irrigation system can be one of those benefits!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Pete is the marketing manager for Michigan Valley Irrigation, having joined the company in 2016. He was raised on a dairy farm in western New York and graduated from Cornell University with a B.S. in agricultural economics. His entire working career of over 37 years has been involved in agriculture. A farmer helping farmers. When away from Michigan Valley he operates, Joyful Noise Farm, a small livestock and produce farm and spends time with his family.
