Looking to take the guesswork out of irrigation for Southern Alberta producers

The Lethbridge-based group, Farming Smarter, is in its final year of a project that helps farmers measure moisture in their fields.

The Smart Irrigation project provides specialized sensors to producers to track the conditions of their soil, but also offers up a five to seven-day model instructing the farmer on the best times to water.

Field Tested Manager Lewis Baarda says the goal is to experiment with different soil types and crops and build a decision support system, with real time data, that can remove some of the guess work.

“A lot of work has been done in the past, as far as what crops need what amounts of water on which soil types – all these things are out there – but we don’t have a good system that brings it all together, so that’s what we’re hoping to achieve with this project,” he explains.