2020 New Product Contest winners announced

The Irrigation Association recently announced the winners of the 2020 New Product Contest. The contest is usually held during the annual Irrigation Show and Education Week, but this year the IA hosted it online. By going virtual, the new products and technologies entered in the contest were given expanded coverage through dedicated product profile pages on the IA’s Education Week+ website.

This year’s contest included products and technologies entered in agricultural irrigation and ag specialty categories. Products were evaluated based on innovation, design quality, increased water/resource-use efficiency, ease of use and product life expectancy. Contest judges were experienced professionals with technical knowledge and industry expertise. Official judging was conducted via Zoom Nov. 16-17.

The winner of the agriculture irrigation category is the All-Flo Pressure Regulator by Nelson Irrigation. The Nelson All-Flo Pressure Regulator has several unique design features that reduce plugging, minimize friction loss and increase accuracy compared to previous designs. It also has increased flow capacity to reduce inventory and installed system cost.

The winner of the agriculture specialty category is Sweet Spot Drip Tape by The Toro Company. Sweet Spot is a 6/8-inch ID Aqua-Traxx drip tape. With Sweet Spot, growers get the perfect tape to split the difference between 5/8- and 7/8-inch ID tape, enabling them to achieve longer runs than 5/8-inch tape and lower costs than 7/8-inch tape.

In addition to the official judging, the IA offered a new People’s Choice Award, where those viewing the entries online could pick their favorites. With 2,485 votes cast, the following products were the winners of the People’s Choice.

• agriculture irrigation – ESAC, Reinke Manufacturing Co. Inc.
• agriculture specialty – SDI-E, Netafim USA