The irrigation season is wrapping up for the year, leaving growers to wonder whether they’ve put on enough water or over watered and when they can stop for the season. Field days on Aug. 27 and 28 will demonstrate soil water measuring tools in production fields designed to help growers feel confident with their irrigation scheduling decisions.
The demonstrations will show several irrigation scheduling equipment systems that were installed in the field this summer and have been recording data. The presentations will focus on understanding the data generated by the equipment and making good irrigation scheduling decisions with it.
“The mission of the event is to share cutting edge irrigation management strategies that can help farmers apply just the right amount of water to their crops to produce top yields, reduce energy costs, leave more water in the aquifer, and reduce nitrate leaching” said Steve Melvin, Extension Educator. “The program is free of charge to the participants, thanks to our sponsors.”
Attendees can view and compare data displays from several of the systems now (see box) and learn more about them at the field days. Company representatives will give a short presentation on how to make irrigation scheduling decisions using data from the field day sites. Attendees will be able to compare low-cost simple devices with the latest high-tech systems.
August 27 - near Broken Bow. The August 27 presentation will be part of the Custer County Corn Growers 2018 Field Day at the Jeremy Coleman farm near Broken Bow. The tour will start at 5:30 p.m. at the field site, located five miles west of the intersection of Hwy 2 and Callaway Road then south ¾ mile on 433 Road. A meal will be served about 6:30 p.m. at Coleman’s shop one mile east of the field on Road 798. The educational program will be presented during the meal.
August 28 - near Bradshaw. The August 28 tour will start at 12 p.m. with field demonstrations of the irrigation scheduling equipment, followed by a meal and presentations in the farm shop. The Bruce Hudson farm is at 2405 Road G, Bradshaw. That is 3.5 miles east of Polk on Hwy 66 to Rd G and 2 .7 miles south or from Benedict (Hwy 81 & State Spur 93C) 6 miles west to Rd G and 2.25 miles north.
More Information Questions? Please contact Troy Ingram at (308) 728-5071 or troy.ingram@unl.edu or Steve Melvin at (308) 946-3843 or steve.melvin@unl.edu
Related CW Article
In case you missed it, see this Aug. 10 CropWatch article, How to Schedule the Last Few Irrigations of the Season, for a method to assess soil water conditions and determine whether end-of-season irrigation is necessary.
View and Compare
the Data Displays Online Now
Five of the systems being demonstrated have telemetry that saves the data to a website where the irrigator can view it. The different devices
- are all installed in close proximity to each other at the two sites,
- have been recording data this irrigation season, and
- can be accessed online now.
You can go to each company’s website and log in using the information provided here to do your own comparisons and then come to the field day to learn more about and discuss the systems with company representatives.
Lindsay FieldNET Advisor
(Both Polk and Broken Bow)
Website: https://app.myfieldnet.com/
Username: nebraskaextension
Password: extension
Crop Metrics Virtual Optimizer
(Both Polk and Broken Bow)
Website: https://app.virtualoptimizer.com
Polk Username: Hamilton.corn
Password: cropmetrics
Broken Bow Username: Jim.coleman
Password: Cropmetrics
Servi-Tech The Profiler
(Both Polk and Broken Bow)
Website: https://portal.stepspro.com/login.html
Username: SMELVIN
Password: extension
AgSense
(Broken Bow)
Website: https://www.wagnet.net/index.php?content=login
Username: tingram_unl
Password: Extension18
John Deere
(Broken Bow)
Website: https://fieldconnect.deere.com
Username: CusterCountyCG
Password: Extension18
