The Missing Ingredient to Healthy Farming: Understanding Groundwater Supply

Farmers are masters at seeing conditions and trends to manage inputs and outputs. It is widely understood that if relevant data are available, the farmer will use it well. So, most modern farmers study a dashboard loaded with metrics including seed count, nutrients applied, gallons irrigated, and production output, among many other statistics. Missing on that dashboard: the condition of the groundwater source on which they, and their neighbors, depend. It’s high time that vital statistic be inserted. Near real time data about groundwater levels in wells can be fed to the farm’s information system, providing insights into available supply. When connected with data about pumping or irrigating, a farmer has the complete groundwater picture, and can manage related systems smartly.