With global demand for fresh water expected to grow significantly over the next decade, agriculture is uniquely positioned to lead the charge in smarter water stewardship. Farmers are increasingly turning to advanced irrigation technologies not only to protect precious natural resources but also to boost efficiency, reduce costs and enhance crop productivity.
“Some areas have a higher focus on watering restrictions, but even in areas where rainfall rates are traditionally higher and irrigation and access to water is easier, there’s still a responsibility to a natural resource that we need to protect,” says Mike Mills, CIC, CID, CLIA, director of sustainability solutions at Reinke Manufacturing Co., Inc. “As growers, we have a responsibility to make sure that even in areas where we have plenty of water, we use it efficiently.”
Smart irrigation technologies are revolutionizing how farmers manage this most critical resource. Modern irrigation systems and controls are moving far beyond traditional watering practices, leveraging advanced technologies that enable precise, data-driven water application.
“We’re seeing an increase in smarter features being vertically integrated into equipment through software tools; from pumps to plans, more data streams are unlocking and sometimes even automating decision support tools,” says Justin Gibson, senior manager of digital agronomy for Lindsay Corporation.
Beyond conservation efforts, integrating smart irrigation technologies into growing practices can cut watering costs and improve management efficiencies while maintaining and often improving crop yields.
“In aggregate, we see growers pumping around 20% less water while maintaining similar yields,” Gibson says. “Depending on energy costs and total amounts of pumping, the value there can be quite significant — more than enough to cover the cost of investment.”
These technologies, once considered luxury items only for large operations, are rapidly becoming essential tools for farms of all sizes. Here’s a look at the latest smart irrigation trends and tips for leveraging smart irrigation technologies on your growing operation.
One of the most significant advances in smart irrigation technology has been the evolution of remote monitoring and control. When first introduced, the most basic controls — start, stop and speed rate — were all that were used. Now, growers can program their irrigation systems to apply different watering rates to specific areas across the field and collect field and operational data that is downloadable, all from a computer or mobile device.
“Farming is becoming tougher,” says Max Safai, CEO of M8 Systems. “Not only in terms of water getting more expensive — California is always in a state of drought, and the aquifer is collapsing slowly. There’s also a labor shortage and the number of people to feed is increasing, so we bring AI and hardware to act on it.”
Also, with the consolidation of farm ground, individuals and farm managers are overseeing many more acres and much more equipment.
“The ability to run their irrigation reduces the labor costs of spending time going machine to machine and made it possible for the grower to manage their natural resources better because of the accuracy of the computerized controls and weather forecasts with these remote devices,” Mills says.
As growers, we have a responsibility to make sure that even in areas where we have plenty of water, we use it efficiently.”
— Mike Mills, CIC, CID, CLIA, director of sustainability solutions, Reinke Manufacturing Co., Inc.
Gary Conover, senior adviser at M8 Systems, added that combined, remote control and monitoring helps farmers create market stability by having the ability to manage water, labor and travel costs through a mobile device or computer.
“Without market stability, the farmer is unable to establish their financial plan, and banks always struggle with farmers to figure out what the revenue is going to be, what the price of almonds or Class I milk is going to be,” he says. “Those [prices] are the things we can’t control. We can’t even predict that, so we’re trying to provide the farmer with at least one tool that they can use to incur some stability in their financial situation.”
While water conservation is a top priority for farmers from sustainability and cost-savings standpoints, AI-enabled technology can drive irrigation decisions to optimize crop production and synchronize harvests.
“AI is a data-hungry technology, and we see IoT as critical to both feeding models and allowing recommendations to be more easily acted on by growers,” Gibson says. “We’re using satellite imagery, weather stations, pivot telemetry and advanced agronomic algorithms to provide a grower with a soil moisture prediction and irrigation recommendation.”
Efficient water use means plants receive the right amount of water at the right time for healthier growth and higher yields. Safai shared an example of an orange farmer in Visalia, California, looking to optimize crop size and sugar content to meet consumer demands. Using AI-powered data tracking to ingest and analyze data to make watering and fertilization decisions enables the farmer to produce the desired size and taste.
“You monitor the growth, and you feed the sugar content into the model as you go around the season,” he explains. “You go through a couple of seasons and train the model, and it can actually guide you toward your optimum result.”
Training the model includes feeding data ranging from soil type and moisture to weather, evapotranspiration rate and the ideal water based on plant root depth, which varies by crop.
“In California, we grow 200 to 250 different kinds of crops, and each has a different root zone,” says Conover. “Through the application of AI and water usage for each of those crops, the program knows how many inches or gallons of water to apply to that particular crop, and the farmer can allow the AI to instruct the application of water, or the farmer can override it and determine themselves how to apply.”
Using AI to analyze data and guide watering application rates can help synchronize crop maturity across different fields. This addresses the common challenge where some areas are ready to harvest while others lag, requiring multiple harvest passes that increase costs and reduce efficiency.
“The model can actually guide you toward the optimum result, such as harvesting your entire farm at the same time,” Safai says. “Whereas today, some areas of the farm are ready to harvest, others are behind, and you have to do two, three or four harvests to get all of your crop out.”
Center pivot irrigation systems have evolved from basic mechanical controls to sophisticated, computer-driven tools that can manage water applications with unprecedented accuracy by blending computer modeling and variable rate irrigation technology.
A single center pivot can now irrigate fields with protected areas or unique geographical features, potentially transforming previously nonirrigable land into productive agricultural spaces.
“In the past, a grower may not have been able to put irrigation on a field because of a specific protected area, so they were stuck dry-land farming,” Mills says. “VRI technology allows the grower to install a center pivot on that field and program that protected area so that no water is applied in the protected area, and yet we are still irrigating the rest of the land around it.”
Even though the grower still can’t irrigate the entire field, they can now irrigate 80%–90% of the land that is not protected and boost crop yield, creating significant additional cash flow.
The cost of implementing smart irrigation technologies is frequently a concern for growers. But the cost reduction and increased crop yields quickly outweigh the initial investment. Safai shared the results of a pilot study to demonstrate the impact of leveraging smart irrigation technologies. At one California farm, Safai’s team controlled a 10-acre lot, and the farm manager controlled a different 10-acre lot.
“After the season was over, they had used 980,000 gallons of water,” he says. “We used 25,000, so almost an eight-time reduction, and suddenly that saves a lot of money.”
The initial expense may also not be as steep as expected. For example, a grower’s equipment may include advanced features that are not being utilized. Think of it like your smartphone, which has endless features, many of which go unused.
“If you’ve got a computerized control panel, you may already have the ability to do some of this as opposed to the varying types of equipment deployment,” he says. “Certainly, the automation is going to be more significant with a 30-year-old center pivot with a mechanical timing device and internal combustion pump compared to one that has an electric pump tied to the controls out of an irrigation system.”
Setup complexity is often another reason growers hesitate to use smart irrigation technologies. As a result, only a handful of the fields they manage use the products. However, Gibson notes that the value of smart irrigation is multiplicative as the number of fields being managed increases across a grower’s operation.
“Most of the systems are step-heavy and burdensome to set up,” he adds. “Setting up for one year can be challenging, but repeating every year, in the case of crop rotation, equipment change or difference in water availability, leads to the tech being hard to maintain year over year.”
Interestingly, according to Mills, technology adoption appears the strongest among the youngest and oldest farming generations. Younger farmers, having grown up with digital technologies, readily embrace these innovations. Older farmers are often motivated by preparing their operations for future transitions, either to the next generation or potential ownership changes.
Mills offered four tips for using smart irrigation tools in a growing operation:
1. Start with the basics. Don’t get overwhelmed by complex features. Before moving to more advanced capabilities, begin with core functionalities like remote start/stop and simple scheduling.
2. Focus on relevant solutions. Identify your operation’s specific water management challenges and select technologies that directly address those needs rather than implementing everything available.
3. Choose proven technologies. Trust well-established technologies with proven field applications. Look for solutions that have demonstrated success in conditions similar to your operation.
4. Implement incrementally. Start small with one or two fields and gradually expand as you become comfortable with the technology and can evaluate the returns.
Smart irrigation technologies are transforming agricultural water management, offering unprecedented precision, efficiency and resource optimization. These technologies will become increasingly critical as labor shortages, climate challenges and global food production demands continue to increase.
“I think we’ll see an increased interest in automation,” Gibson says. “It will take some time for growers to fully buy in, but once they do, I think it will be hard for them to want to give it up.”
As agricultural challenges continue to evolve, these precision irrigation technologies will play an increasingly critical role in sustainable food production, helping farmers to optimize water usage, improve crop yields and manage resources more effectively.
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