The Pacific Northwest is known for its highly productive dryland farming, relying on natural rainfall patterns instead of irrigation or sprinklers, which also reduces costs. Consequently, there is a relative dearth of infrastructure for distributing piped water to the crops during a severe drought or heatwave.
I just got back from touring Oregon and Washington and I got to see a lot of fascinating agriculture. Primarily hazelnut trees along with some berries other speciality crops and "hay."
The nut tree farmers need some help. They are spraying water scattershot to soak the ground. What's more is that they have the ground prepared as perfectly flat bare soil--I presume to make automated harvesting possible.
It looks like a lot of resources are allocated to this rather imprecise method of irrigation and as the droughts and heat persist I could see this failing to scale. It doesn't look like it scales very well even in good times.
I was wondering, given the very organized situation of the trees and ground, why are they not using direct or site-based (drip?) irrigation? It would definitely change the watering process from one of rolling and unrolling irrigation line and towing of sprinklers (water canons?) to one where you would automate water delivery via a network of lines with computers and have workers monitor and repair lines as needed.
Many farms in the US run off a municipal water supply. Only in the west do farms have irrigation systems. When you get east of the Missouri river there is enough rainfall to water the crops and so you don't have any irrigation needs (I don't know why the climate changes so drastically on this line but it does). Even if you have a well, if you are east of the river it is only for household and livestock use, not irrigation.
This story reminds me of the central WA state where I grew up. They had a similar network of canals. It's the largest irrigation network in the US (according to the internet). Unlike the one in the article, most farmers in central WA aren't flooding their fields directly from the canals. Many of the farmers running at any sort of scale opt for a center-pivot (circle) to water their field. These machines end up being the most water (and labor) efficient way to water a field of 100+ acres.
I worked at for an irrigation supplier for a few years and got to see all the ins-and-outs of how these machines work. The supporting infrastructure is pretty impressive too. The pumps, pipes, valves, and electrical panels that drive these machines is an engineering marvel.
That only works if you have unlimited amounts of unused fertile soil at the transport origin.
Western Washington has a massive excess of water but can't use this technique to "send it" anywhere... the clay-heavy soil isn't much good for industrial-scale crop production (aside from trees of course).
Exactly right on rain being the determining factor. In NE Iowa and SE Minnesota, where I am from, it is one of the most drought-resistant areas of farm land in the nation. No one would waste dollar-one on an irrigation system. (Getting 4 rainless days in a row so that you can bale hay is a bigger issue). As you go west, the influence of the Rocky Mountain rain shadow takes on increasing importance. About half way across SoDak or Nebraska, center-pivot irrigation starts to pencil out.
Our water in Central Oregon does help to grow things though. One of our biggest water sources is snow melt, which get transported down a canal to farms in southern Oregon. So even though water locally may be used for any serious farming locally, it does get used for serious farming water down stream.
You can grow things in an arid region (desertification has more to do with being unable to retain water in poor soil). Whether those things are what people want to buy at the market is something else.
There are many design patterns and practices for better water management. Some of them are only just being implemented — California is now just starting to credit growers with putting water back into aquifers during seasons of excess rain (and mitigates flood risks). But there are a lot more to be done, including water harvesting structures that slow down water (converting surface water to ground water).
He's in Wisconsin. He's not thinking about dry season farming.
On the other hand, if you are thinking about dry season farming, the government is already 150 years ahead of you and may fine you for attempting to hold onto more water than what can safely percolate in a day or two.
America's not. The southwest and California are. The rest of the country has a surplus of water from rain. The farms near me all use rainwater retention ponds for irrigation, it's much cheaper than digging a well (the farther you lift water, the more energy it takes), and that's only for really water hungry crops (fruits and vegetables). The corn and wheat around here are all watered by the sky.
I live in the midwest and irrigation is definitely used around here. Not for all crops but there has been a huge increase in the usage of irrigation over the past decade. There's usually enough rain but irrigation still helps make yields a lot more consistent.
we are doing a bunch of tech around better water usage on farms. http://www.mywildeye.com/wildeye/ We have done a bunch of work in New Zealand and Australia and now moving into California and the rest of the US.
One of the big things is not just to optimize water, but optimize the whole problem which water is one part of.
They could probably dramatically reduce the amount of water used by agriculture while still having plenty of agriculture.
Decades ago, I saw an article about making little basins to capture rain water in the right amount to sustain a tree in the desert to grow fruiting trees in places like the Middle East using natural rainfall in order to increase productivity of arid lands without stressing the environment. I don't believe this is standard practice anywhere in the world, much less a "developed" country like the US, but there's no reason it couldn't be a common practice someplace like California.
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