Smart irrigation with mobile drip irrigation potato
Every year, the Irrigation Association celebrates Smart Irrigation month to promote products, practices and services that allow for the more efficient use of water. In this article, we’ll demonstrate how farmers can save water while maintaining yield with mobile drip irrigation (MDI).
As a center pivot dealer in southwestern Kansas for over 40 years, it became clear to Monty Teeter that water levels in aquifers were declining. It is now common in the area to hear of wells that were able to produce over 1,000 gallons per minute 20 years ago that can now only pump 200 gallons per minute today. Teeter determined that something needed to change to help prevent the exhaustion of our ground water. So, Dragon-Line LLC was founded in 2015 with a simple mission: “Make every drop count.”
Dragon-Line offers the most advanced mobile drip irrigation system on the market and the most efficient way to irrigate with a pivot. These MDI systems are designed to be compatible with any brand of pivot or linear-move system. This is all possible thanks to the development of high-flow pressure-compensating emitters that allow for the even application of water across the system without the need for pressure regulators. Emitters begin working at 8 PSI and maintain a 2-gallon-per-hour flow with little variation on their flow curve up to 60 PSI. Thanks to this technology, mobile drip irrigation systems can:
- Achieve an application efficiency of 98 percent;
- Increase infiltration of water into the soil profile;
- Eliminate loss of water caused by wind drift;
- Reduce losses of irrigation water to evaporation;
- Eliminate wheel tracks in the field; and
- Reduce runoff of irrigation water, even on steep slopes
One of the Dragon-Line’s most practical and functional advancements is its patented winch assembly and V-jack cable hooks. The winch assembly allows for adjustability of an irrigation system in row crops, as the placement of the drip lines relative to the row can be adjusted throughout the growing season. Users can germinate a crop with their drip system by creating a wet strip with irrigation water before planting, followed by watering directly over the seed after planting. This will create an ideal environment for seed germination without wasting water wetting the entire furrow. This principle also offers one of the best ways to fertigate crops, as nutrients can be spoon-fed near the roots for immediate availability.
Other uses for the winch assembly include the application of water directly on plants such as potatoes, onions and sugarbeets to prevent germinating seeds from weeds within the furrow, and concentrate limited irrigation water near the crop. The V-jack cable hooks allow for installation of manifold support cables without the need for a ladder, and for the height of the manifold to be adjusted. This can be especially useful, as it allows farmers to include crops such as corn in their rotation more easily than previous models of mobile drip irrigation.
This technology provides a reduction in evaporation of 20 to 40 percent and increased application efficiency of 5 to 25 percent, even in years with less water. These numbers can dramatically increase, however, in windy and dry conditions where evaporation is higher.
