![Photo: Instrument that detects rainfall as part of an automated irrigation system.](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090509202354im_/http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2009/rainalert090318.jpg)
New instruments like RainAlert, which detects
rainfall and can automatically shut down irrigation systems, are based on
ARS-patented technology. Photo courtesy of Smartfield, Inc.
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![For further reading](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20090509202354im_/http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/graphics/For-further-reading.gif)
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Company Expands ARS Technology to Save Water, Energy
By Don Comis
March 18, 2009 This year, a Texas-based company is
expanding a timely automated irrigation system that saves water and energy and
is based on Agricultural Research
Service (ARS)-patented technology.
The system is called SmartCropTM. Plant physiologist
James
R. Mahan and a team of scientists at the ARS
Cropping
Systems Research Laboratory in Lubbock, Tex., developed the technology.
The company, Smartfield, Inc., in Lubbock, Texas, is adding three
instruments: SmartPump to detect pressure and flow rates in subsurface drip
systems; SmartWeather to monitor wind speed and sunshine; and RainAlert to
detect rain. The company began marketing SmartCropTM for the 2008 irrigation
season.
SmartCropTM uses pole-mounted infrared thermometers to read leaf
temperatures as well as surrounding air temperatures. A computerized controller
wirelessly receives the readings every 10 seconds from each thermometer. The
controller also collects weather data. Every 15 minutes, it transmits data
averages to the Internet.
SmartCropTM capitalizes on the researchers' discovery that each plant
species grows best only within a narrow temperature range. An overheated plant
may need water as much to cool down as to assuage thirst.
For cotton in the Lubbock area, the system might send a text message
advising turning on irrigation if leaf temperatures read above 82 degrees
Fahrenheit for more than 6.5 hours at a time.
Listening to plants via cell phone has saved cotton, sorghum and wheat
grower Glen Schur of Plainview, Texas, about 7 million gallons of irrigation
water a year on average, according to his reports. That saves Schur $4,000 a
year in energy costs alone.
The water saved would be the equivalent of the total water needs of 44 homes
for a year.
Spread across just the center pivot and drip irrigation systems in the
country, the water saved would fill the needs of about 10 million homes a year,
and energy saved would power about a million homes.
ARS and Smartfield continue working with Schur and other farmers, both to
refine SmartCropTM further and to inspire research into new ways to address
this century's water, energy and climate challenges.
ARS is the principal intramural scientific research agency in the
U.S. Department of Agriculture.