Plainfield Company Maps for Water

Plainfield-based Company Has Various Units That it Can Use to Generate Field-level Information on Where Irrigation Will Be Needed to Greater and Lesser Degrees

Jeff Stahl, a sales manager for Precision Water Works, demonstrated several of the tools during Farm Technology Days in Stevens Point.

The implement gets dragged across the fields and maps the moisture-holding capacity of the soils.

The process of pulling the soil-probe implement takes about three-four hours for a 150-acre field.

For example, Stahl said, water use can be reduced in heavier soils that have a greater ability to hold that moisture.

Spread over a large field or fields, that amounts to a great deal of savings.

It also helps increase yields, Stahl said, because too much water where it's not needed, not only costs the farmer money to put on the field, it can also cause drowning of crops in areas where so much water isn't needed.

The tool used by the company, which is pulled behind a tractor, has probes that take electrical readings at one-foot and three-foot depths to determine the soil's moisture-holding capacity.

The two depths are measured because different crops grow in different levels of the soil profile.

Detailed testing

The company was founded by Lamar LaPorte, who grew up on a farm where irrigation was a way of life. Later he worked for an irrigation company and then founded Precision Water Works.

LaPorte explains that sandy soil in one area of the field requires more water, while heavier soils in another area won't need as much water, because those are areas that can hold onto water longer.

The electromagnetic sensors drawn through the soil provide information that is a starting point. That information is then "geo-ferenced" with other data, via software programs, and can be constantly updated, he added.

Reports aid planting

The reports can be used to help select fertilizer levels, liming rates as well as various kinds of crops or seed varieties to grow. The information contained in the mapping process allows the farm to have a "prescription" for what to grow and how to grow it.

Software programs allow the mapping function to be interfaced with irrigation systems Stahl said. Once that happens, the farmer can adjust and tweak the use of the irrigation systems.

The newer technology is allowing farmers to experience yield bumps on their cropland as well as conserving water and nutrients that cost them money, making the whole system more efficient.

LaPorte has been working with the University of Wisconsin's water use specialist John Panuska on best practices for irrigation. (We featured him in last week's story.)

Source: Wisfarmer

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