North Plains Groundwater Conservation District 200-12 Reduced Irrigation Demonstration Project

The North Plains Groundwater Conservation District manages groundwater resources in eight counties located in the northern Texas Panhandle.  Within the district, over a million acres of corn and other crops rely heavily on irrigation from the declining Ogallala aquifer.  As aquifer levels decline, agricultural irrigators must adjust their practices to continue operating.  The 200-12 Reduced Irrigation Project establishes on-farm demonstrations by area producers to show how water conservation technologies and irrigation management practice adjustments can reduce on-farm groundwater use allowing irrigated agriculture to remain financially viable into the future. The project’s goal is to grow 200 bushels of corn on 12 inches per acre of irrigation water under a center pivot in an area where corn irrigation averages 21 inches per acre. 

The on-farm demonstration project has evolved from three district directors that risked their fields in 2010, to eleven cooperators today. The cooperators and the district’s conservationist use real-time data and other information to monitor crop and soil moisture conditions while managing irrigation applications.  Each cooperator chooses commercially available corn hybrids, determines seeding and fertilizer rates, and schedules pesticide and herbicide applications. Each field is equipped with a remote continuous tracking and control system for monitoring and managing irrigation application frequency.  During the growing season, the district works with the cooperator to monitor applied irrigation, rainfall, soil moisture, and plant fertility for crop health maintenance and to quantify project results. Advanced technologies such as electromagnetic soil mapping, variable rate irrigation and satellite imagery are being incorporated in the project.

If rapidly improving real-time technologies and irrigation management practice adjustments can be translated to three inches of reduced crop irrigation in the district, the water savings will be 250,000 acre-feet annually, prolonging the viability of agriculture irrigation in the region.