Hands-on learning, training make irrigation best practices accessible

UCCE advisors provide free training to nursery and greenhouse staff

Gerry Spinelli (center) and an irrigator from Boething Treeland Farm confirm the amount of water captured from sprinklers. Photo by Saoimanu Sope.

Working as an irrigator seems straightforward at first: if you're not watering plants by hand, you're building and managing systems that can do the watering. What could be complex about a job like this?

University of California Cooperative Extension advisors Bruno Pitton and Gerardo “Gerry” Spinelli can tell you – or better yet, show you.

Pitton and Spinelli, members of the UC Nursery and Floriculture Alliance, offer a one-day technical training in irrigation best-management practices for irrigators working with containerized nursery plants. The comprehensive curriculum – developed with input from two focus groups of California nursery and greenhouse managers – aims to improve irrigation efficiency, reduce water consumption and improve plant health.

Thanks to funding from the California Department of Food and Agriculture, nursery and greenhouse managers in California can request this training for free and advisors like Pitton and Spinelli will travel to conduct the training on-site.

The complexities of irrigation incorporate concepts like evapotranspiration, salinity, irrigation uniformity, capillarity, pressure and flow rate. Spinelli, UCCE production horticulture advisor for San Diego County, said that irrigators have a critical role in the industry because of all the things they must consider to do their job well.

“Our goal is to support irrigators and help them become more confident decision-makers and experts in the field,” said Pitton, UCCE environmental horticulture advisor for Placer and Nevada counties.

Bruno Pitton (left) observes irrigators measuring water pressure during the training at Generation Growers. Photo courtesy of Bruno Pitton.

Interactive sessions reveal nuances of irrigation

The training consists of a presentation on fundamental concepts for managing irrigation in container plant production and hands-on demonstrations. “In the nursery industry, where precise irrigation is crucial for the health and productivity of our crops, having access to expert knowledge is invaluable,” said Mauricio de Almeida, general manager of Burchell Nursery in Fresno County. “The training's practical demonstrations and real-world examples made the concepts easy to grasp, allowing our team to implement the strategies immediately.”

For one of the demonstrations, the advisors used sponges to model soil saturation when water is applied. Ana, an irrigator at Burchell Nursery, appreciated the step-by-step explanations, which helped her better understand how water pressure differs in drip irrigation, sprinklers and watering by hand. Doing this out in the field, as an example of how irrigation audits occur, was extremely helpful for attendees.

Francisco “Frank” Anguiano, production manager of Boething Treeland Farms in Ventura County, observed his team of irrigators as they learned how to measure distribution uniformity with water collected from sprinklers. “This training isn't just about irrigation and plant management. It's also about savings, both water and costs. Who doesn't want to save money and use less water?” Anguiano said.

Burchell Nursery irrigators work together during an activity using drip lines. Photo courtesy of Bruno Pitton.

Reducing the barriers to learning

Many of the irrigators attending these trainings gained their skills and knowledge from life experience rather than a college education, explained Peter van Horenbeeck, vice president of Boething Treeland Farms. “It's important that my irrigators learn from external experts, but it's more important that they can relate to them. And that's what Gerry was able to do,” van Horenbeeck added.

Regarding content and delivery, and referencing what he learned from the focus groups, Pitton wanted the trainings to be easy to understand and engaging. For example, scientists use the term “matric potential” to describe how soil particles hold water against gravity, which is the same as capillary rise. “We demonstrate this concept with a paper towel held vertically and dipped into a beaker of dyed water that it absorbs,” said Pitton.

Many of the irrigators in attendance agreed that hands-on activities and visual aids were instrumental to their learning. Charli, another irrigator at Burchell Nursery, shared that the in-field examples and hosting the training in Spanish kept them engaged.To address language barriers, Spinelli has been conducting trainings in Spanish – a common request from many nurseries with eager participants.

Irrigators at Generation Growers learn how to measure distribution uniformity. Photo courtesy of Bruno Pitton.

Maintaining state regulations and partnerships

Although the technical aspects of irrigation management are key elements of the training, regulatory compliance is also addressed. Recognizing the finite availability of water and the environmental impact of pollution, the advisors highlight irrigation and fertilizer management and runoff prevention as critical components of compliance.

Under Ag Order 4.0 administered by California's Water Resources Control Board, growers must comply with stricter policies regulating nitrogen use. As irrigators learn from the training, better control of irrigation can certainly make a difference.

Deanna van Klaveren, chief operating officer and co-owner of Generation Growers in Stanislaus County, said the most valuable aspect of the training was learning on-site and completing an audit on her own systems. “It is so much more impactful to have trainings like this on-site where our staff can learn and then go out into the nursery and actually put it into practice while the presenters/experts are there,” van Klaveren said.

Pitton and Spinelli described the partnership between UC Cooperative Extension and CDFA as “symbiotic” given the technical and educational capacity of UCCE advisors who conduct research and extension.

“It's a great example of how the two institutions can collaborate successfully. Californians are the ones who win because they get a service for free,” added Spinelli. “And it's rewarding for us to see so much interest in what we, as advisors, do.”

UCCE advisors, Pitton and Spinelli, pose with irrigators from Burchell Nursery to conclude the training. Photo courtesy of Bruno Pitton.

If you are a nursery or greenhouse operator and would like to request the Irrigation Best Management Practices training, please contact the UCCE advisor assigned to the region that corresponds with your nursery location below.

Northern California