The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

Sprinkler Irrigation

8—The cost of power for sprinkling, not including any pumping required to bring the water to the edge of the field, based on one cent per kwh and 6() percent pump and motor efficiency, will be $0.75 to $1.50 per acre foot. On this basis annual power cost may be $1.50 to $2.00 an acre on northern projects and $4.00 to $7.50 per acre on southwestern projects.

9—Labor required for applying water by sprinkling will range from one-half to four man-hours per acre of application. One man devoting all his time during the irrigation season to irrigation can irrigate 40 to 160 acres by sprinkling. This is comparable to the requirements for surface methods.

10—Finally it is concluded that not only in areas where climactic, soil and economic conditions make irrigation with surface methods successful but in areas where bad topography, or soil, or crop peculiarities make irrigation impossible with surface methods, sprinkler irrigation can be used with fair assurance of success.

Reports From A Farm

This information is reprinted here to show the different crops that have been successfully irrigated in various parts of the country and give some of the details.

Portable Pipe Irrigation Practices In Michigan F. W. Peikert

Professor of Agricultural Engineering.
From Michigan Quarterly Bulletin

Supplemental irrigation is becoming a standard practice on a number of Michigan farms producing crops having a high return per acre. At the present time practically all the irrigation is by some type of sprinkler system. For field irrigation the quick-coupling portable pipe with rotating sprinklers is most commonly used, and there are about 250 such systems in the state. The amount of land irrigated on individual farms with portable pipe ranges from small plots of several acres up to 80 acres or more. Several farmers have as much as 125 acres under irrigation.

Table 1 shows the different crops being irrigated in Michigan. Those with the greatest acreages under irrigation are strawberries and potatoes.

Value And Cost Of Irrigation

Yield Due to Irrigation

One of the most important factors in irrigation is the increased yield that can be expected over that of crops not irrigated. Of the 62 farmers contacted, 50 made reports and all these indicated an increase in yield as shown below. The others did not have any definite information on which to base their comparisons.
Farmers
Yield reporting
Much better 41
Better 5
50% increase in yield 3
300% increase in yield 1
50 reports