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Posts Tagged: CASI
Overhead irrigation holds water-saving potential for California farms
In California, 40 percent of agriculture is still irrigated by pouring water onto farmland, a much less efficient practice that drip and overhead irrigation. But those numbers are changing, reported Matt Weiser on Water Deeply.
Weiser interviewed UC Cooperative Extension cropping systems specialist Jeff Mitchell about the water-saving potential of using overhead irrigation, a system that is popular in other parts of the nation and world, but only used on 2 percent of California farmland. Mitchell was the primary author of a research article in the current issue of California Agriculture journal, which said that water and money can be saved using overhead irrigation in production of wheat, corn, cotton, onion and broccoli.
Mitchell said California researchers are looking more closely at overhead irrigation because they anticipate future constraints on agriculture, including water and labor shortages. Additionally, the system is ideal for combining with conservation agriculture systems, which include the use of cover crops, leaving crop residue on the soil surface and reducing tillage disturbance of the soil. The combination of overhead irrigation and conservation agriculture practices reduces water use, cuts back on dust emissions, increases yield and improves the soil.
Weisner asked how overhead irrigation could be as efficient as drip, when people typically see "water spraying everywhere from these roving sprinklers high off the ground."
Mitchell said farmers use pressure regulators and a variety of nozzles on hoses hanging down from the system to deliver water at precisely the rate and location where it is needed through the season.
"So, they're not spraying water. These are low to the ground, and there are various delivery nozzle practices that can be used," Mitchell said.
No-till agriculture has substantial benefits for Central Valley residents
The article featured a number of California farmers who sang the praises of the no-till farming method.
- "We definitely save money through higher production, less water usage and lowered equipment and fuel costs," said Modesto farmer Jesse Sanchez
- "We started in 1985 using the no-till method, and since then we've doubled our yield potential," said Fritz Durst, a Yolo County farmer
- "I not only get great production, I save a great deal by not buying expensive tilling equipment, and I look to double my production in times of little rainfall because no-till increases the water-storing capacity of the soil," said Michael Crowley, a Turlock farmer
UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) conservation agriculture expert Jeff Mitchell said the slow implementation of no-till in California is "largely a matter of our farmers not being familiar with no-till practices."
Tillage became popular in California in the 1930s. The agricultural systems developed in the state were wildly successful.
"Because they worked so well, and were so profitable, nobody has felt they should make a change," said Mitchell, who is a UC ANR Cooperative Extension specialist based at the UC Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center.
Mitchell is chair of the Conservation Agriculture Systems Innovation Center, a group of farmers, researchers, USDA scientists and ag industry professionals who are working together to spread the word about and encourage adoption of no-till production. Key CASI messages were shared in the Comstock article.
“Since water does not evaporate as quickly in no-till fields, savings in water cost are easy to determine,” Mitchell said. “In addition, fewer pesticides are often needed and farmers also save money by the diminished need to buy the expensive tilling equipment and to pay people to run them.” He adds that soil in the fields, no longer exposed by the tilling, remains richer in its biodiversity and can sustain higher yields. Compaction of the soils, caused by the heavy tilling equipment, is reduced.
Drought is driving interest in high-tech irrigation systems
Allan Fulton, UC Cooperative Extension advisor for Glenn, Shasta and Tehama counties, said technology is improving the ability to organize crop data and get it to farm managers on the fly.
"With the right system," Fulton said, "farmers can get almost to-the-minute information on every aspect of their crop."
As new, integrated database systems are being created, new data-gathering equipment also is advancing for field use to further aid on-farm decisions, the article said. For example, the California Department of Food and Agriculture announced last week a $286,000 grant to UC Davis for work on a continuous leaf moisture monitoring system. Using thermal infrared sensors along with environmental sensors that measure ambient temperature and relative humidity, wind speed and incident radiation, the system's goal is to detect crop water status to support irrigation management.
Jeff Mitchell, a UCCE specialist in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis, is evaluating overhead, or center pivot, irrigation technology, especially in a system that includes conservation tillage. The research is being conducted at the UC West Side Research and Extension Center in Five Points with equipment donated by industry.
The work group focuses on emerging crop- and soil-management techniques — conservation tillage, high-surface residue preservation, cover crops — to improve irrigation management, increase carbon storage and build soil quality.
"We're developing completely new cropping systems for the valley," Mitchell said, "and these get at the so-called three E's of farming—integration of equipment, economics and ecology."
Kings County farmer Dino Giacomazzi, said growers are thinking in terms of systems these days. Giacomazzi is a founding member of UC's Conservation Agriculture Systems Innovation, a workgroup that Mitchell chairs.
"It's very difficult to put things together piecemeal. Even to get advice about these more advanced systems is difficult," Giacomazzi said.
UC conservation ag specialist is no-till farming's 'Johnny Appleseed'
Mitchell, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis, took Johnson to research fields and farms to show progress being made toward more sustainable production practices in California row-crop farming. Johnson turned the visit into a 1,300-word feature that included links to conservation agriculture research Mitchell has published in California Agriculture journal.
"There's a soil scientist at Berkeley, Garrison Sposito, who says it may be just once or twice in a century that agriculture has an opportunity to re-create itself in a revolutionary way," Mitchell said. "... I think that's what's happening with conservation agriculture. It's energizing for me to wake up to that every day.”
Mitchell and his colleagues are proponents of four tenants of conservation farming:
- Don't disturb the soil
- Maximize the diversity of plants, insects, fungi and microbiota
- Keep living roots in the soil
- Keep the ground covered with plant residues
Mitchell took the writer to the UC West Side Research and Extension Center in Five Points to see research plots that have been farmed continuously with conservation techniques. The beds "have not been worked in 15 years," Mitchell said. “There's more organic material going into the soil, more carbon and more nitrogen. There's more capture of water, and the shade and residue reduces soil water evaporation.”
As the years passed, the soil improved. Instead of the farm equipment needing to break up clots of compacted soil, the researchers found they were planting into soft, fine-grained earth, continuously tilled by worms and roots and microorganisms.
Mitchell learned that residues and no-till practices can reduce irrigation water needs by 16 percent, as well as cut down dust emissions and store extra carbon in the soil.
Conservation leaders honored at UC Twilight Field Day
Three conservation agriculture pioneers were honored at the UC Conservation Agriculture Systems Innovation Twilight Field Day at the UC West Side Research and Extension Center yesterday, reported Patrick Cavanaugh in the California Ag Today blog.
CASI chair Jeff Mitchell, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis, presented the awards before the conclusion of an event that included tours of three local farms and three sites at the field station.
Ron Harben, project director at the California Association of Resource Conservation Districts, was recognized for outstanding service to CASI. Ralph Cesena, Sr., president of Cesena Distributing in Stockton, received the CASI Industry Innovator Award. Danny Ramos, manager of Morning Star company's Lucero Farmers, was presented the Conservation Tillage Farmer Innovator Award.
Twilight Field Day participants view a center pivot irrigation system.
