Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Accomplishments: Objective 1 " The AgriPartner program of Texas Cooperative Extension [Drs. Brent Bean and Carl Patrick and Leon New, O.R. (Reggie) Jones (Coordinator), and Don Dusek] has summarized on-farm irrigation and dryland demonstrations where the NP ET models and data were validated in 2003-2004. " Maintain the crop water use by NDSU at the website: http://ndawn.ndsu.nodak.edu/applications.html. " Continue to maintain and update the NDSU irrigation website at http://www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/abeng/irrigation.htm. " Maintain support by NDSU for the irrigation scheduling computer program developed several years ago with Minnesota Extension " A PDA based irrigation scheduling program for the Palm operating system has been developed. The program and operating manual was given to 12 cooperators at the beginning of the 2004 irrigation season for testing purposes. " Several articles were published in the NDSU irrigation newsletter, Water Spouts, concerning irrigation scheduling and soil water measurement. " The NRCS EQIP program in North Dakota will cost share pivot sprinkler package conversions from high to low pressure and provide funding for the irrigator to document irrigation water management. This program is very popular. Training sessions on irrigation water management have been held at several locations in the state. " The AgriMet Program Coordinator of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation made several presentations in 2004 to encourage the use of climate based irrigation scheduling methods. These presentations include: 1. Four States Irrigation Conference held in Ft. Collins, CO January 13-14, 2004. The conference was sponsored by Reclamation as part of its Water 2025 Initiative. 2. Four 1 hour classroom presentations to the Reclamation sponsored Bureau of Indian Affairs Water Management Workshop in Denver, CO February 10-12, 2004. The topic was Evapotranspiration and Soil, Water, and Plant Relationships. 3. Irrigation Water Management Workshop for producers and irrigation equipment dealers in Baker City, Oregon February 26, 2004. Approximately 20 people attended. 4. Idaho Agricultural Conservation Committee, Twin Falls, Idaho April 28, 2004. Approximately 20 people in attendance. " AZSCHED VI (AriZona irrigation SCHEDuling) program, is now available on-line to download onto personal computers. " AZSCHED VII has been completed and is undergoing Beta testing. The program has been significantly updated. The crop list now includes trees crops such as pecans, lemons and pistachios. " AZSCHED VII has been programmed to allow for users to identify their own weather data set and use that set in the scheduling process. " Alfalfa and turfgrass (both cool season and warm season) ET estimates, based on locally derived, climate-based crop coefficients were published in the Farmington Daily Times newspaper each week (Sunday morning edition). " A desert landscaping coordinating committee was formed in New Mexico on August 11, 2004 to increase the awareness of the public regarding the value of water and ways it can be used more efficiently. " A workshop; Web-Based Resources for Irrigation Scheduling was presented at the Southwest Turfgrass Conference. Ruidoso, NM, September 23-26, 2003. " Dan Smeal coordinated the committees sponsorship of a climate-based irrigation scheduling technical session (both for agriculture and turf) at the upcoming Irrigation Associations 25th Annual Irrigation Show and Technical Conference in Tampa, Fla., Nov. 14-16, 2004. Objective 2: " Evapotranspiration of soybean was measured using weighing lysimeters in 2003 and 2004 under full-irrigation, and dryland evapotranspiration of a cotton-sorghum rotation was measured in 2003 and 2004 at Bushland. " The three weighing lysimeters installed at Uvalde, TX in prior years have been successfully operated in obtaining crop coefficients and on selected vegetable crops to date. " A unique project was initiated this past year to assess evaporation data from compacted, cattle feedyard pen surfaces via the use of small, shallow lysimeters (1m x 1m x 0.2m) at the North Plains Research Field near Etter, TX. " Several types of soil moisture measuring apparatus were installed in research plots. Data were used to verify scheduling methods. " Development of laboratory calibration methods for several types of soil moisture measuring devices is an ongoing project. " An irrigation scheduling program based on turfgrass crop-coefficients developed at Farmington was used successfully to schedule irrigations on existing turfgrass at the same site. Plans are to test the transferability of the model to other sites. Objective 3: " Preliminary comparisons of the newly drafted ASCE ETo equation on a hourly basis to that of daily computations has been found to generally agree to a multiple digit level with regards to daily summations. " Both ETos and crop ET data form the TXHPET network has been used by the Texas A&M-Amarillo group (includes Dr. Howell at Bushland) to develop new state irrigation demand methodology for both northern panhandle region of Texas and for statewide use. " The standardized reference ET equation was compared to the Jensen-Haise and the NDAWN reference ET (Penman Equation). Weather data from the Carrington NDAWN site from the 1992, 1996 and 2002 growing seasons (May 1  September 30) were used for the comparison. Objective 4: " Crop coefficients for cotton were developed and will be published soon (Aug./Sept. issue) in Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering (ASCE) and crop coefficients were presented at an ASAE/CSAE meeting. All NP ET crop development models and Kc data are based on GDD models for wheat, sorghum, corn, cotton, peanut, and soybean for the Texas High Plains. Several of these Kc data are being used by groundwater districts successfully in Kansas. " Crop coefficients for the 10 most irrigated crops in North Dakota were developed many years ago for use with the Jensen-Haise reference ET equation. The crop coefficients are based on days past emergence (DPE). The crop coefficients for potatoes were checked as part of other ongoing research and generally are correct. " AgriMet uses a set of crop coefficients originally developed by the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Kimberly, Idaho. " AgriMet crop curves are available on the internet at http://www.usbr.gov/agrimet/pn/cropcurves/About_Crop_Curves.html " Work was done this past year using AZSCHED VII on citrus. The citrus curve was over estimating crop water use. " A turfgrass crop coefficient based on a relative, cumulative growing degree-day scale was presented at the Irrigation Associations 24th Annual International Irrigation Show in San Diego last November (2003). " Collaborated with Dr. Mick ONeill (NMSU ASC-Farmington) on developing a crop coefficient for poplar trees in northwestern New Mexico. Verification is proceeding. " A xeriscape demonstration/research plot was established at the ASC to study landscape plant response to irrigations equal to 20%, 40%, and 60% of PM reference ET. One objective is to develop crop coefficients for xeric species.