Scheduling the last few irrigations of the season deserves more of your management time than earlier irrigations because one must not only focus on keeping the crop wet enough to produce optimal yields, but also on using up enough of the stored soil water to lower the level to 40% of plant available water in the top four feet. This level will give about 2.4 inches of water storage room in sandy soils and about 5.5 inches in silt loam soils. Unfortunately, many irrigators leave the soil fairly wet with little to no storage room according to a recent study.

Do you know how much water your crop is using on a daily basis?  When I ask this question most guys tell me somewhere between 0.20 - 0.40 inches per day.  Sometimes they are close but wouldn’t it be nice to know for sure?  It is rather simple to figure out if you have the right tools.

 An atmometer, such as the ETgage®, is what you need to calculate reference ET.  ET stands for evapotranspiration.  This is the amount of water evaporated from the soil and plant surface and transpired through the plant.

The UNL CropWater App. A handy tool for irrigators to use in the field to aid in irrigation scheduling.

Simple checks you can preform on your center pivots to make sure they are ready for the irrigation season.