Tag: midwest

Toro Husker Harvest Days 2017 - Booth 436

Toro, Husker Harvest Days 2017 – Special Subsurface Drip Irrigation Events, Demos, Giveaways Planned

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Join us in Grand Island, Nebraska in booth #436 for the complete Toro Husker Harvest Days 2017 experience!  Toro will be offering a variety of ways for growers to learn about subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) and how it can help them maintain or increase yields using less water, even during a drought.

We’ve got quite a line up planned for this year’s show.  Visitors will have the chance to hear first-hand from irrigation industry veterans during one of our expert-led events throughout the show. All events are free and happening with Toro, Husker Harvest Days 2017.

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Is Subsurface Drip Irrigation the Future for Midwest Agriculture?

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Subsurface Drip Irrigation (SDI) on CornThe use of flood and center pivot irrigation of crops via the waters of the Ogallala Aquifer is as hot a discussion topic as the current drought.

To many who mine the aquifer to make a living, trying to keep a profitable way of life sustainable in a time when the broader public is seeking more conservation of resources yet wanting inexpensive, plentiful and safe food is problematic.

Is subsurface drip irrigation the answer?

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Subsurface Drip Irrigation (SDI) Brings Improved Crop Health, Efficiency & Reduced Labor Costs to Kansas Farm

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Roger Johnson and his family have farmed an 80-acre plot just outside the western city limits of Hoxie, Kan., for years under flood irrigation. Even while using all of the 800 gallons per minute available, it was necessary to split the 80-acre piece in two and farm different crops to manage the water.

“We always had problems getting water through the field,” Johnson explains, “and many times the crop we produced would be very good on one end of the field and nonexistent at the other. I remember before we installed subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) on the field, one year we made 165 bushels of corn there.”

In 2012, a very dry year even in country that expects only 15 to 18 inches of rainfall annually, Johnson and his brother, Bob, and son, Heath, binned 220 bushels per acre on the 80-acre field by applying water at a 600-gallonper- minute rate—75% of the well’s capacity—with subsurface drip irrigation. This past year, that same field produced a 79-bushel soybean crop.

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Subsurface Irrigation Systems Drip Water When and Where It’s Needed to Support Higher Yields

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A 40-year-old irrigation technology is seeing newly realized yield value as drought conditions, economic factors and resource scarcity issues intensify.

Initially adopted by U.S. vegetable, fruit and nut farmers in the 1960s and 1970s, subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) technology has rapidly advanced in the last two decades and continues to gain precision agriculture momentum.

Today’s SDI systems apply slow, frequent applications of water into soil and surrounding plant root zones through a system of driplines and emitters buried 10 to 18 inches below ground. SDI systems are well suited to support crop production in arid, semi-arid, hot and windy growing conditions such as those experienced by farmers in the High Plains states.

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Toro to Offer Subsurface Drip Irrigation Guide, Education & Tools at Husker Harvest Days

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Toro will be exhibiting at Husker Harvest Days in Grand Island, Nebraska, offering a variety of ways for growers to learn about subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) and how it can help them maintain or increase yields using less water, even during a drought.

At the booth (#436), Toro will be hosting a number of growers and dealers to share their experiences with SDI to grow soybeans and corn in Nebraska. Interested growers can learn the benefits of SDI first-hand and get a free demonstration on designing an SDI system using Toro’s AquaFlow drip irrigation design software. Additionally, Toro will debut a new ‘how-to’ guide for SDI, based on case studies and years of research growing a variety of crops. Growers attending will also see the actual results of an SDI system at a field demonstration hosted by the show. The first in the show’s history, the demonstration plot irrigates a 30-acre cornfield with SDI buried 14 inches deep on 60 inch centers.

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How to Save Water and Boost Yields with Subsurface Drip Irrigation

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Subsurface Drip Irrigation (SDI) on CornWith the help of manufacturers, like Toro, and local dealers who design, install, and provide service and support, growers in the Midwest are finding out first-hand how subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) systems not only improve water- and fertilizer-use efficiency, but also provide higher yields. And as the drought continues to affect water supplies, the need for efficient irrigation practices becomes more apparent. Couple this with high crop prices to allow a quicker return on investment, there may be no better time to invest in drip.

In a recent article in No-Till Farmer, reporter John Dobberstein examined the benefits of subsurface drip irrigation for field crops (such as corn and soybeans) and interviewed several Midwest producers who are already seeing payoffs by switching to drip.

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A Shift to Drip Irrigation

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In the wake of the drought, the Midwest is seeing a shift from pivot and furrow irrigation to drip irrigation on some acres. In a recent and great article by Corn&Soybean Digest, reporter Larry Stalcup wrote about making the switch to drip irrigation. Larry interviewed Don Anthony, a Lexington, Nebraska, grower to learn about his experiences with subsurface drip irrigation (SDI), as well as Freddie Lam, an agricultural engineer and irrigation researcher at Kansas State University.

According to Freddie Lam of Kansas State University, more than 300,000 acres are now drip irrigated in the Great Plains, much of which is cotton. But many growers in the western Corn Belt and southern High Plains are also making the shift to drip irrigation for other crops such as corn and soybeans.

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