Dry Farming Flourishes in Drought-stricken California

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Dry Farming Flourishes in Drought-stricken California

Reducing the amount of water we use to grow our food would go a long way to helping the world's water stress.

At the moment, we use more than two-thirds of our water for agriculture. With the United Nations predicting that by 2025 two-thirds of us could be living with water scarcity, it throws the issue into sharp relief.

Fresh water is rarer than you might think. In fact, it's only 3% of the planet's supply with around 75% stored in glaciers.

So we should cherish every drop, and pay attention to ways in which we can cut down in all areas, not just agriculture. Feeding the world, however, is a job which isn't going to disappear any time soon. So how can we do it with less water?

Dry farming

Today, there are urban farms without soil, where plant roots are misted rather than irrigated, with a water saving of 95%. The UN estimates that we'll nearly 10 billion people - the majority living in urban areas - to feed by 2050, we are increasingly looking to tech to solve our problems.

But sometimes the answer is as old as the hills where the food is grown.

How can I use less water?

Dry farming is a method which uses no irrigation. Plants are encouraged to dig their roots deep, and draw on natural water reserves in the soil. The ground is prepared to lock in as much natural moisture as possible. Farming this way is optimum in certain terrain where groundwater naturally accumulates, such as at the base of a mountain.

There's evidence to suggest the Incas farmed in similar conditions in South America. Much of Europe's lucrative wine industry is dry farmed. And today winemakers in drought-stricken California are following suit.

"In France irrigation is forbidden -- you cannot irrigate grape vines," says Tod Mostero, viticulturist at Dominus Estate in California's Napa Valley. "There's a reason for that. It makes sense that you plant crops where they belong, and not in places where they don't."

Dominus have dry farmed for years, and the water saving is enormous. By not watering their 100,000 vines, one million gallons of water is saved each month.

"Frankly I consider irrigation of vineyards a pure waste of water," says Mostero.

In California, where 80% of water is given over to agriculture, such savings are not to be dismissed. And given the increasing pressure on growers of water-thirsty crops such as almonds, dry farming could be an option for more farmers. Potatoes, tomatoes and quinoa are already grown this way locally.

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Photo: George H. H. Huey

Root of the problem

For the winemakers, taste is, of course, key. Happily for Mostero, Dominus grapes are more mouth-watering than their irrigated counterparts.

"We don't believe you can make a wine that has true character, or at least the character of your vineyard, unless it's dry farmed. Because only if it's dry farmed will it have that connection with the soil."

Thanks to location requirements, dry farming is not for everyone. Another downside is that yields can be lower. There is another water-saving technique farmers can call on which has neither of these restrictions: partial root drying.

Pioneered by University of Lancaster professor and crop scientist Bill Davies, it involves splitting a plant's root system in two, watering one half, and starving the other. The process is then reversed, and uses roughly half the water of traditional irrigation.

Partial root drying has been successfully trialled on a number of crops, including water-hungry rice. "Rice uses a ridiculous amount of water," says Davies. "Probably about a third of fresh water on the planet. We have to grow rice with less water." Allowing a paddy to dry out before replenishing can drastically cut water usage.

"We have advised Chinese farmers, if you jump in the paddy and you land and you can see your footprints, don't irrigate," says Davies.

"Farmers throw water around. Most irrigation systems are pretty imprecise. But as the climate changes it's getting hotter and drier in many food-growing areas. Our systems have to change. Farming has to respond now."

Sustainable agriculture needs many solutions to the problem of water scarcity. And with population increasing, the pressure is on for farming to do its bit.

Source: CNN

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5 Comments

  1. Just for the record:  Australia's  Minister for Water,  Senator Penny Wong,  is on record as having blocked a trial in 2008 in  the South Australian Riverland, intended to prove a new form of fertilizer which had already been shown to reduce irrigation water requirement by 40%.

    The trial application by Geomite Pty Ltd of Adelaide was for independent supervision of a three year ten acre treatment intended to point the way to massive reduction in Murray River water input and was supported by Toll transport.  No costs were sought by this company or Toll.  

    The Minister refused to assist or to meet with the company's staff whose location was less than 5 km distant from her office.

    The product was successfully trialed independently but without the supervision required.  

    This company found the commitment of the Australian Government to new agriculture development to be suspect, despite the hype!

     

  2. BOOSTER OF PLANTS GROWTH

    The Sahel is an area (Niger Rep.) with short season rainfall of 3 months compared to 9 months of dry season with large climatic differences between the two seasons. It is the most vulnerable region to climate change with a cultivable surface less than 15 %, and has the lowest level of economic development in the world.
    The climate change has materialized in an obvious way and raised the problems of population, poverty, equality in gender.

    The Booster of plants growth concerns an innovative irrigation and maintenance system which optimizes effectively the quantities of water and nutrients for boosting the young plants development. The device promotes the physical conditions for the proper conduct of cellular metabolism into roots hairs of plants. It ensures supply of nutrients, regulating watering, oxygen, thermal variations around the root system. The invention allows obtaining a growth ranging from up to 2.31 times more, the size of a plant kept in the traditional cropping conditions, during the same period and with the same quantities of inputs and water.

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    Hassane Bissala Yahaya

  3. Tunisia is a small country in north of Africa. It is the ancient Carthage Empire.  In this country, more than 3/4 of the land is arid (getting less than 300mm rainfall/year). In this water scarcity climate conditions, Tunisia has developed the largest number of olive trees: more than 70 millions olive trees. The majority of the olive trees are not irrigated, getting only rainfall water (rain fed or dry farming system). This big number of trees makes Tunisia one of the main worldwide producers of olive oil with Italy, Greece and Spain. In 2015 Tunisia was the first exporter of olive oil in the world.

           With the climate change, since several decades we are observing more and more long droughts (1 till 4 years completely dry) similar to California situation the last 4 years. During The long droughts, there is no rains which can feed, by infiltration, the water reserves in the soil of the dry farming olive oil trees. This induces negative impacts on growth (most of the leaves and thin branches are completely dry, in some conditions the trees are completely dry), yield (no yield).  The negative impacts of long droughts induce also important reduction of olive oil production and export.  

          In 1983, Arid Region Institute has initiated a research program focused on finding solutions for sustainable water resources management in the arid regions of Tunisia, to make the 70 millions of olive trees alive and producing regularly within the conditions of climate change.   After about 30 years of field research, 2 new technologies have been developed and tested: “the draining floater” and the “buried diffusers”. The first allows to “pump” and distribute, down stream, the water of dams (small, medium and big size) using the gravity and siphon principle. The second allows to irrigate with 70% less water than drip irrigation to get the same or higher yield (vegetables or trees). The buried diffuser allows also:  to deliver only one irrigation per year in winter (anticipated irrigation) and long drought mitigation by “water injection and storage” in the deep soil layers of the trees plantations. This “water injection and storage” is done during the “rainy” years when there is a huge of water (flood water) lost in the salty lakes or seas and oceans.  The “water injection and storage” during 1 month covers the water requirement of the trees for 1 year; the “water injection and storage” during 2 months covers the water requirement of the trees for 2 years, the “water injection and storage” during 3 months covers the water requirement of the trees for 3 years.

             Since 2014 a Tunisian SME, CHAHTECH (www.chahtech.com) is manufacturing and distributing worldwide both technologies. This company is willing to cooperate with private companies or with governments to shares both technologies. As CEO of Chahtech I propose my collaboration with California State administration to mitigate long droughts and to save irrigation water. For any contact this is my email: bchahbani@chahtech.com

  4. Thanks for this note with which we are in phase. semi-arid régions are actually dealing with this issue not because of too much water consumption but mainly because of its unavailability. We are actually promoting an in-situ water provision to tree, garden and agricultural fields so that it goes directly to the racins reducing loss due to evaporation, weather and other climatic conditions.