What crops do we apply irrigation water to here in the United States? How many acres of these crops are irrigated? And, in what states are these crops grown? The pie charts on this page give you the answers.
The bunch of pie charts below looks pretty confusing - but that is because it gives you so much information at once! The charts show two important things:
Which crops are grown most in the U.S., using irrigation
Which states grow the most of each crop.
The size of the pies indicate the relative amount of land that was under irrigation in 1994. You can see that corn and hay were the leading crops that are irrigated. You might be surprised that the U.S. has so many acres devoted to rice, even more than to vegetables.
For each pie, the colored slices indicate the major states that grow the crops. For example, 49 percent of all irrigated acres devoted to growing corn are in Nebraska, and 42 percent of all irrigated acres used for growing vegetables are in California.
Look at how small the light blue slices are in each pie. These slices indicate the total irrigated acres for the states that are not shown in the rest of the pie. This shows how just a few states can account for a majority of crops grown. Look at corn, for example -- the "other states" slice is 20 percent. This means that 80 percent of all irrigated corn acreage in the U.S. are in four states: Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, and Colorado.
Source: Day, J.C., and Horner, G.L. 1987, U.S. Irrigation,
Extent and Economic Importance,
U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Information
Bulletin 532
U.S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey
URL: http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/ircroppies.html
Page Contact Information: Howard Perlman
Page Last Modified: Friday, 07-Nov-2008 15:44:17 EST
