From the Valley Courier (Laura Krizansky):
See what happens when potatoes are watered from underground.
On Monday, Beiriger and Christensen Farms welcome the public for a Drip Irrigation Field Day starting at Coors Farm, Saguache County Roads 50 and E, at 9 a.m.
The tour bus will stop at both farms participating in the Colorado Potato Administrative Committee (CPAC) sub-surface drip irrigation trial that could lend to the way crops are irrigated in the future. In March, the Rio Grande Roundtable unanimously approved $40,000 from local basin funds to support the $146,395 endeavor based on successful Colorado State University area drip irrigation experiments.
The trial is located within the Subdistrict No. 1 boundary, covers 40 plus acres and utilizes two different system layouts. Similar to a home-based lawn system, each zone is pressured up and watered in sequence for a few hours before moving on to the next section. In a 24-hour period, the whole farm is watered and the system starts over again.
Roger Christensen installed both permanent and temporary drip lines on 15 acres, half of which is in permanent drip, buried 13 inches underground, and the other temporary, buried two to three inches under the soil. He is growing five acres of Norkotah potatoes, five acres of Yukon Gold, four acres of CO99 100s and one acre of Classics. The Norkotah and Yukon Gold varieties are preforming the best; and he has salvaged 20 percent of his water, applied only one fungicidal treatment versus three or four and applied only 105 units of nitrogen versus upwards of 200.
What is most interesting, Christensen said in an interview on Thursday, is the way the water moves through his clay heavy soil.
“It’s funny,” he said about the permanent drip lines that he is finding to outperform the temporary system. “It just rises up.”
The trial has encountered a few problems, he said, but none that have hindered the potato crop.
“It’s growing very well,” Christensen said. “I will do it again next year.”
For five years, Dennis Beiriger and his brothers dreamed of turning their fourth-generation family farm in Hooper into such a demonstration project to prove the benefits of a drip system over a pivot system in a drought-stricken environment. The system is deliberately over-sized at their location to send the water across the road to the center-pivot sprinkler system to compare the amount of water the drip tape uses versus what the center pivot uses to water the crop. He is growing 35 acres divided between the Norkotah Selection 3 and Tabena varieties, and favors the temporary drip line in his sandy soil.
“It has been a learning experience,” said Beiriger, who is looking to use the system for barley next year. “It’s a better deal. You aren’t going to hurt the aquifer.”
The trial also includes moisture monitoring, plant nutrition monitoring and pest monitoring with help from Agro Engineering.
In addition to the tour, attendees will have the opportunity to ask the growers questions about the trial. Diversity D. Inc. drip irrigation specialist Ross Roberts, Maya Ter-Kuile-Miller, Cactus Hill Ag Consulting, Jason Lorenz, Agro Engineering, and Danny Sosebee, Netafim USA agronomist, will also join the panel.
Coors Farm will provide lunch at 1 p.m. when the tour concludes. RSVP to Judy Jolly at 852-2402 ASAP for lunch.