Dr. David Sloane

The final fields were planted this week at the Water Conservation Center (WCC), so planting is now complete! As always, we take great care to ensure the planter is working properly and the seed is placed at the correct depth. This was super critical in the subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) fields as we are comparing 6 different hybrids at 4 different plant populations and irrigation rates. Getting the populations correct and making sure we planted into moisture was the most important consideration. It isn’t always that easy to get the surface wet when you are applying water 14” under the ground but we used a pulsing technique, where we applied 0.15” every few hours to get water to wick-up to the surface. It was made much easier by the fact that we already had permanent soil moisture sensors installed, so we could see what was happening to the soil moisture conditions, even before we put seed in the ground.

On the center pivot fields we are sharing water between early planted corn that will be cut for silage and later planted corn that will be harvested for grain. So as one side of the field was just being planted, the other side was already at V5-V6 (as shown in the picture below). The idea is to share water between the two halves and spread out the peak irrigation demand so that we can apply more water over a smaller area at critical times. By having more water available during the critical pollination period, we hope to get more crop per drop. We also hope to harvest the silage early and get ahead of the peak demand for silage harvest equipment and trucking. That also gives more time to establish a cover crop to protect the soil and trap moisture heading into the winter.

The SDI fields are split into two identical halves, where one half was planted early and the other half was planted 3 weeks later. The later planted corn should accumulate heat more quickly and have a shorter growing season, yet we are going to give each treatment the same amount of total irrigation for the early and late planting. This effectively increases the water allocation per week and will give more information about what agronomic package might work best in this environment.

Tracking water at the WCC is critical and we have some of the most closely monitored fields in the panhandle! We have permanently installed soil moisture sensors in both halves of the pivots and each zone in the SDI fields. In addition to that, Curtis Schwertner and David Sloane (pictured) installed another 12 seasonal soil moisture probes in the early planted SDI field, so that we can monitor all 6 hybrids at the highest and lowest irrigation treatments. This will be replicated with another 12 seasonal soil moisture probes in the later planted SDI field once a plant stand is established. Each well has flow meters that are tracked using the VandWater system and each pivot also has a flow meter, so we know how much is applied to each half. Basically, every drop is accounted for so that we can bring you the hard numbers when it comes to demonstrating water saving techniques and technologies.

Stay tuned for more updates and look out for information about a field day we are planning for later in the season. The WCC is being run by your water district to demonstrate to you what can be achieved using irrigation and agronomic best practice. If you want more information or wish to visit the WCC at any time, please contact the NPGCD office in Dumas to arrange a visit.