Water isn't something western Nebraskans take for granted. Irrigators, electric cooperatives, Natural Resources Districts (NRDs), Extension educators, and center pivot manufacturers alike have been doing their part to conserve Nebraska's most vital resource, according to Ted Tietjen, project coordinator and founding member of the Nebraska Water Balance Alliance (NEWBA).

KEEPING A CLOSE WATCH: Ted Tietjen notes an example where monitoring technologies paid off this spring. "When I was watering wheat in the spring, I was running at 670 gallons per minute, (GPM) when the well should have been pumping 600 GPM," he says. "I thought that was high. And it turns out there was a drain plug on the second to last tower that had blown out." If the drain plug had not been replaced it would represented a 10% loss of water. With allocations that much loss would be unacceptable.

NEWBA is a coalition of irrigators and other stakeholders from Holdrege to Mitchell whose goal is to help conserve Nebraska's water resource for future generations. Since the organization was founded five years ago, Tietjen and NEWBA have worked with irrigators to monitor daily water applications, consumptive water use, power company energy use, and soil moisture information, and identify how those factors are influenced by management.

"If we can reduce the amount of water that's applied and use it more efficiently, we can reach a point where we'll stabilize the aquifer for future generations," says Tietjen. "We need to do it in a framework that is economically feasible. The goal is to try to balance your revenue with water conservation."

Water impacts everyone in western Nebraska, and that's one of the reasons NEWBA has such a diverse membership, notes Larry Umberger, NEWBA board vice chair and general manager at Midwest Electric Cooperative Corporation in Grant. "Sixty percent of our revenue comes in from irrigation," Umberger says. "If we would lose all those irrigated acres, we would reduce our revenues from our current $26 million to about $10 million dollars. Rates would need to increase on other consumers to help pay off debt invested for irrigation."

REMOTE MANAGEMENT: Ted Tietjen demonstrates using telemetry to control a center pivot on this winter wheat field near Grant managed by farmer and NEWBA member Bruce Young.

"Twenty-five percent of all the acres in our district are irrigated – that's about 430,000 acres. Without that, the economy of this area would take an enormous hit," adds Nate Jenkins, assistant manager at the Upper Republican NRD, which includes Chase, Dundy, and Perkins counties.

Whole systems approach
In the last 20 years, there have been a lot of improvements in how farmers manage water in western Nebraska. "When I was a kid, everybody used to plow, but a good percentage of our district is in strip-till or no-till to catch winter moisture for spring planting," says John Berge, general manager at North Platte NRD, which encompasses Scottsbluff, Morrill, Banner, Garden, and Sioux counties. "There was a lot more flood irrigation than what there is today. The on-farm efficiency increase by going from flood to center pivots is huge – an increase from 65% to 85% efficiency."

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It has taken a whole-systems approach, with a number of factors at play, and in recent years, this has included a combination of regulation and incentives. Although allocations aren't exactly something irrigators get enthusiastic about, it's a regular part of life and western Nebraska, and it's something irrigators are good at adapting to, Jenkins and Berge note.

Farmers have adapted to regulation and a changing climate in a number of ways, and that's a lot easier with the newer tools available to them, like updated sprinkler packages – newer pressure regulators.

A big piece of the puzzle is monitoring technologies, including telemetry units and computer programs to make sure pivots are running when they need to, along with weather stations to measure rainfall, soil moisture sensors, and atmometers to measure evapotranspiration (ET). NEWBA has worked closely with growers to implement these systems and adjust management based on data collected.

Meanwhile, NRDs like the Upper Republican and North Platte NRD give priority to technology like soil moisture probes for cost-share funding, and are launching programs to install telemetry units on flow meters and wells throughout the districts.

Taking it to the next level
The next question is: where is it all heading? Tietjen says somewhere in the not-so-distant future, growers will likely plan what they plant for the growing season based on consumptive water use – that is, specific hybrids, varieties, or alternative crops to fit their water needs.

"For example, right now they grow 110 to 114-day corn near Holdrege, and in Bridgeport it's 97-day corn. That decision is based on water allocation. Every four days you extend the growing season it takes an extra inch of water. You still need water at the critical reproductive stage," Tietjen says. "Now, instead of regulating by inches of water we're going to be regulating by consumptive use, and we're going to do a better job of irrigating."

Currently, the consumptive use for NEWBA members is 11 bushels of corn per inch of water – one of the pieces of data gathered through monitoring technologies in recent years. "If we could bring that up to 13, it would be great," Tietjen says. "I'm convinced that with changes in strategies we can keep the aquifer from declining any further and not sacrificing the economy of the community."

Read more about how western Nebraska irrigators are improving water use efficiency in the July Nebraska Farmer.