Improving water and energy management for small and mid-size farms

This proposed project will enable commercialization and widespread adoption of an innovativeirrigation management tool that addresses three fundamental goals of the SBIR program; (i)improving the efficiency of water and energy use; (ii) increasing the profitability of small irrigatedfarms through better planning and risk management; and (iii) utilizing renewable energy moreeffectively.A panel of nationally recognized experts in agricultural irrigation commissioned to prepare a'Road Map' to advance irrigation efficiency stated that "Irrigation efficiency is ultimatelydetermined by management and good management depends on soft technologies (softwaremodeling)." To that end the proposed project will promote and facilitate use of a 'nextgeneration' decision support system (DSS) for optimum irrigation management by small andmedium sized farms. The DSS was originally designed to increase net farm income bymaximizing water use efficiency. With a recent grant from the California Energy Commissionthe DSS is being adapted to improve energy use efficiency in the broadest sense by increasingenergy use efficiency aligning irrigation schedules with variable timing of renewable energygeneration and facilitating energy load shifting to minimize stress on the grid.The decision support system (DSS) at the heart of this project relies on sophisticated modelingof the disposition and fate of applied water and soil water dynamics to characterize crop wateravailability in spatially variable fields. It accounts for the specific irrigation system performanceand operational constraints of individual farms and provides farm managers with detailedoptimized schedules for water and energy use weeks or months into the future. But thesesophisticated capabilities necessarily involve substantial analytical complexity and the accuracyof the system depends to some extend on local farm-specific calibration. The user interface isbeing simplified to the point where once set up and calibrated a farm manager will need nospecial technical training to use it. However the relatively high level of technical training andexperience required for calibration presents an obstacle to widespread use of the systemparticularly for smaller farms.The goal of this project is to make the software easier to use by irrigators with a wide range ofirrigation experience and educational backgrounds. The first step in this process is to developan intelligent automatic calibration procedure using simulated annealing augmented withheuristic spread sheets through which to input locally specific knowledge and experience. Thesecond phase in this project involves working closely with irrigators on small and mid-sizedfarms and with irrigation schedulers and crop consultants who serve small and mid-sizedfarms to continue modifying the software to meet their operational conditions without addingundue burdens of higher management costs or added labor.