Previous research

2023

Multi-stakeholder dialogues for resilience planning to sustain irrigated cattle feed and forage systems Water scarcity issues, which are being aggravated by climate change, require adaptive management approaches to sustain cattle feeding in the American West. This project supported a series of targeted dialogues involving feedyard mangers, hydrology experts, and others to identify critical research priorities, partnership opportunities, and potential action steps to raise awareness of and reduce risk associated with beef industry supply and value chain stakeholders that depend on irrigated production of feed and forage.

2022

Using the irrigation-energy linkage to estimate irrigation water delivery (continued from 2020 and 2021) Metadata
Principal Investigator: Amy Harsch, Nebraska Water Balance
Industry Partner:  Grower Information Services Co-op

Extension outreach tools to improve adoption of irrigation management technologies in the Texas Panhandle Metadata 1 , 2 , 3 , 4
Principal Investigator: David Parker, Ph.D., West Texas A&M University & Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service
Industry Partners: Better Harvest Co., Providence Farms

Organizing and analyzing Testing Ag Performance Solutions program data, quantifying productivity and GHG outcomes for corn, grain sorghum, and cotton
Principal Investigator: Daran Rudnick, Ph.D., University of Nebraska-Lincoln

2021

Precision mobile drip for specialty crop vegetable production Metadata 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8
Principal Investigator: Qingwu Xue, Ph.D. Texas A&M University
Industry Partners: Dragon Line, Valmont, and Dynamax Inc.

Advancing pivot automation with proximal sensing for maize and soybean in the Great Plains (continued from 2020) Metadata
Principal Investigator: Derek Heeren, Ph.D. University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Industry Partner: Valmont

Irrigation scheduling using soil water supply and atmospheric evaporative demand Metadata 1 , 2 , 3
Principal Investigator: Trenton Franz, Ph.D. University of Nebraska- Lincoln
Industry Partners: Aspiring Universe Corporation, Arable Lab, HydroInnova LLC, Corteva and PlanetLabs Inc.

Connecting field-scale performance to watershed health: the added power of sharing data (continued from 2020) Metadata
Principal Investigator: Dayle McDermitt, Ph.D. Nebraska Water Balance Alliance
Industry Partners: Grower Information Services Cooperative, Olsson

Quantifying irrigation water savings of Agrivoltaics
Principal Investigator: Jordan Macknick, Ph.D. National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Industry Partner: Jack’s Solar Garden

Sustainable plasticulture recycling opportunities Metadata 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6
Principal Investigator: Charles Hillyer, Ph.D. California State University-Fresno
Industry Partners: Jain Irrigation, DOW Chemical

Precision irrigation on golf courses with soil moisture sensors and mapping Metadata 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12
Principal Investigator: Chase Straw, Ph.D. Texas A&M AgriLife Research
Industry Partners: The Toro Company, United States Golf Association

2020

Advancing the development of the Parallel 41 Flux Network (continued from 2019 and 2018) Metadata 1 , 2 , 3
Principal Investigators: Christopher Neale, Ph.D., Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Eduardo Santos, Ph.D.,
Kansas State University
Industry Partners: LI-COR

Optimizing irrigation of turfgrass with precision technology Metadata
Principal Investigator: Jay Ham, Ph.D., Colorado State University, Cathie Lavis, Ph.D., Kansas State University
Industry Partners: The Toro Company, AeXonis

Toward pivot automation with proximal sensing for maize & soybean in the Great Plains Metadata
Principal Investigator: Derek Heeren, Ph.D., University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Industry Partners: USDA-ARS-Bushland, TX, Valmont Industries

Precision irrigation water management with remote sensing in California orchards Metadata 1 , 2 , 3
Prinicpal Investigator: Dilruba Yeasmin, Ph.D., Fresno State University
Industry Partners: WiseConn USA, Irrometer

An economic impact study of the irrigation industry
Principal Investigators: George Oamek Ph.D., Headwaters Association, John Farner, Irrigation Association
University Partners: Colorado State University, Kansas State University, Fresno State University, Texas A&M University, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Connecting field scale performance to watershed health: the added power of sharing data Metadata
Principal Investigator: Dayle McDermitt, Ph.D. Nebraska Water Balance Alliance
Industry Partners: Growers Information Services Cooperative, Olsson Engineering, Twin Platte Natural Resources District

Onsite solar nitrogen production Data and Discussion Paper
Principal Investigator: Niko Pinkowski, Ph.D., Nitricity
University Partner: Charles Hillyer, Fresno State University

Testing landscape irrigation flow sensors
Principal Investigator: Brent Mecham, Ph.D., Irrigation Association-retired

Field Testing of a new protocol for evaluating weather-based irrigation controllers
Principal Investigator: Mark Crookston Ph.D., Northern Water

Wireless sensors for modeling crop evapotranspiration
Principal Investigators: Matthw Lurtz, Ph.D. candidate and Ryan R. Morrison Ph.D., Colorado State University

Measuring crop water use with a novel Internet-of-Things sap-flow system
Principal Investigators: Maria C. Capurro, Ph.D. candidate, Allan Andales, Ph.D., Jay Ham Ph.D., Colorado State University

Calibration and evaluation of a multi-scale spatially distributed ET algorithm
Principal Investigators: Principal Investigators: José Chávez, Ph.D., Colorado State University
Industry Partner: Northern Water

2019

Satellite and UAS imagery used to apply timely irrigation strategies Metadata 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5
Principal Investigators: José Chávez, Ph.D., Colorado State University
Industry Partner: Lindsay Corporation

Vertical irrigation solutions with machine learning Metadata 1 , 2 , 3 , 4
Principal Investigator: Joshua Craver, Ph.D., Colorado State University
Industry Partner: Vertical Irrigation LLC

Improving maize production with subsurface drip irrigation Metadata 1 , 2 , 3
Principal Investigator: Freddie Lamm, Ph.D., Kansas State University

New Soil Moisture Technology for Improving Landscape Irrigation Management
Principal Investigator: Jay Ham Ph.D., Colorado State University
Industry Partner: The Toro Company

Expanding the Parallel 41 flux network (continued from 2018)
Principal Investigator: Christopher Neale, Ph.D., Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Industry Partner: LI-COR

Reducing nutrient runoff in surface-irrigated sugarbeets
Principal Investigator: Erik Wardle, Ph.D., Colorado State University
Industry Partner: Western Sugar

Low pressure and low flow media filtration system
Principal Investigator: Kaomine Vang Ph.D., Fresno State University
Industry Partner: Perigo LLC

Artificial neural network model Metadata
Principal Investigator: Fayzul Pasha, Ph.D., Fresno State University
Industry Partners: WiseConn, AgH2O, Dynamax, JAIN Irrigation, Irrometer

Irrigation and pumping plant efficiency tool Metadata
Principal Investigator: Joel Schneekloth Ph.D., Colorado State University Extension
Industry Partners: EPRI, Tri-state G&T

Irrigation scheduling with remote sensing under full and deficit irrigation
Principal Investigators: José Chávez, Ph.D., Colorado State University
Industry Partner: Colorado Corn

2018

Predictive modeling of delivered water utilizing power consumption data
Principal Investigator: Davide Zoldoske, Ph.D., Fresno State University
Industry Partners: REDtrac, Madera Pumps, and McCrometer

Radio wave moisture sensing technology
Principal Investigator: Davide Zoldoske, Ph.D., Fresno State University
Industry Partner: Digital Springs, LLC

Remote sensing-based decision support with micro-satellites & ground-based data Metadata
Principal Investigators: José Chávez, Ph.D., Colorado State University
Industry Partner: Lindsay Corporation

Underground wireless networks for soil moisture sensing and irrigation water management
Principal Investigator: Jay Ham Ph.D., Colorado State University
Industry Partner: The Toro Company

Transforming eddy covariance flux stations for real-time data delivery Metadata
Principal Investigator: Christopher Neale, Ph.D., Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Industry Partner: LI-COR, The Climate Corporation