Center Pivot Irrigation Efficiency: BMPs for Center Pivot Irrigation
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EmailMarch 7, 2025
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This session focused on enhancing the efficiency of center pivot irrigation systems through the implementation of Best Management Practices (BMPs). Attendees learned about key strategies for optimizing water use and improving overall system performance.
Speakers: Angie Gradiz, MSU Extension Irrigation Efficiency Educator and Xin Qiao, UNL Irrigation Specialist
The 2025 MI Ag Ideas to Grow With conference was held virtually, February 24 - March 7, 2024. This two-week program encompassed many aspects of the agricultural industry and offered a full array of educational sessions for farmers and homeowners interested in food production and other agricultural endeavors. More information can be found at: https://www.canr.msu.edu/miagideas/
Video Transcript
Okay. I think we are going to get started. So on Today's presentation, we have a very special guest from the University of Nebraska Lincoln. Doctor Shin Sha, is associate professor at the Department of Biological Systems Engineering. We spent a great time at Western Nebraska doing a lot of irrigation research. So having him as a guest is very, very special. Doctor Shin, is yours. Hi, I. Hello everyone. Can you hear me okay? Yes. I don't think I'm that special. Probably a little bit special in terms of I'm 2 hours behind you guys. That's about all. But let me share my screen and please let me know if you can see my screen in presentation mode. We see it in presentation mode, so you're good. And can you remind me I have 20 minutes, 25 minutes? Yes, about 25 minutes. 2025. Thank you, Angie. I don't have many slides. Again, very honored to be here and ready to share some center pivot operation. A little bit about center pivot design. Actually, let me go to the outline. A little bit about before you purchased center pivot, I realized that a center pivot irrigation has been increasing in the state of Michigan in the last couple of years. So if you're in the stage of considering a center pivot, there are some simple things to think about. And then when you come to operating, what are some of the most important parameters to keep an eye on. And then also some, I think, preventative maintenance that will help you to make sure the center pivot is in good shape. Um, and then I'll talk a little bit about best management practices, especially about irrigation efficiency and especially, uh, uh, why it matters and which part of efficiencies is important, which part of efficiencies, you know, there's not much you can do. And lastly, I'll show some, tools and about better irrigation management. I missed previous sessions and apologize for that. So there might be some overlapping topics, but the last part, these are from my experiences working with center pivots. With that, I will start and feel free to stop me if you have any questions that goes to the very last. Okay. So I'll start from center pivot system capacity. This is important if you're in a stage of considering a center pivot and now you're in the design phase. You're working with the irrigation company, look at your field, look at your requirement, and then they start the design. So the system capacity is a ratio of flow into the center pivot divided by the amount of land irrigated. Very simple concept and it has a unit of gallon per minute per acre. Let me see if I can use my I change my pointer. Okay. There we go. So when you consider system capacity, it's important to think about your crop water demand, especially during peak water use. What that means is your capacity should meet the demand, together with your soil water storage. If we look at an example, if you have a 100 acre field and you have a 600 gallon per minute well, your system capacity is six gallons per minute per acre, and that translates to your capacity is you can put down one third of an inch every day. If your pivot cycle is 2.5 days, your pivot can put down 0.8 " in 2.5 days. Now, typical system capacity in Nebraska is from 3.85 to 6.6 gallons per minute per acre. We see lower capacity in eastern parts of the state where it's a little bit humid and the soil is a little bit better, meaning you have a little bit more buffer. Where I'm at in western Nebraska, it is a little bit hotter and more drier and our soil is not that good in terms of holding water. So our system capacity when they sp that it's a little bit higher. It's also affected by weekly downtime if you have load control or other things. We do have some of that here if guys they are electrical grid. Sometime I think they opt in that program to save some electricity. So in case you have those kind of things, you need to think about that when design your system capacity. This is a simple table. Done by my colleague, doctor Darrell Martin. If you have a downtime, let's say, 24 hours a week, basically one day out of the week, you cannot irrigate, and then your system application efficiency is about 85% typical. Then you're looking at, this is a multiplier. What that means is if we think about, for example, six gallons per minute, you need to multiply by that number, that would be your ideal system capacity considering some of the downtimes, you're going to have. Then when you manage center pivot, there are two most important things. One is flow rate, the other thing is pressure. We'll look at nozzle flow rate briefly over here and that matters why it's playing a slide later on. So the discharge of your nozzle, it depends on your system capacity, which we just talked about, and also the distance from the pivot point and your spacing. When you go further away from your pivot point, the pivot will go faster, and your flow rate or your nozzle flow rate should be higher. And if you have a wider space in your nozzle flow rate should be higher as well. And the discharge rate or nozzle flow rate increase with nozzle diameter and pressure. It's easy to understand the bigger the hole is, the more water it can flow out. If you look at this chart, as you apply more pressure, and then that's going to increase your nozzle discharge rate. Just remember that Now, about pressure, proper pressure is very important for uniform application of your irrigation and then can vary along the pivot. Even you are on a flat ground and pivot point, that's your highest pressure and as you go further and further because of friction loss, it will gradually decrease. Then if your land is not flat, you have some valley, you have some hill, it's going to affect more. This is an excellent chart that shows you that and this field it might be on the exaggerated side of things. So assuming your pivot point is on the hill and then Over here, you have about 30 feet elevation drop. You pivot point it starts with 30 psi and then over here, you are almost at 45 or even 47 48 psi because of that pressure drop. If you think about what I just presented, your nozzle discharge rate change with your pressure. So um, When that pressure varies along your lateral of your pivot, your nozzle flow rate is going to be affected by that pressure variation. A lot of times people will put on pressure regulators to minimize those variations and regulate that down to a constant pressure. This shows you a typical pressure regulator. This is where the water comes in and this is where the water goes out. For this particular one, it will regulate your pressure to 15 psi. It's important that for pressure regulator to work right, you need to have a pressure higher than 15 in this case. If it's 20, it will regulate that pressure down to 15. But if you have ten, the pressure regulator won't work. An important rule of thumb is that you want to make sure your pressure, let's say you have a pressure regulator here and this is 15 psi. You always wanted to make sure at this point, your line pressure is at least 20 psi, so five psi higher than what the nozzle demands or the pressure regulator demands at the furthest location, probably on the highest point, that's your most extreme case. If you satisfy that, your pressure should be good for all over the field. My colleagues, they did some case studies in Nebraska, look at this problem, especially the pressure at the end of the system. This shows you this chart, the Y axis is pressure at the end of the system, the furthest point from your pivot point, and this is system angle. So when the system is circulating around the field, they measure the pressure. So the orange line here, this is what the ideal pressure should be 30 psi. So you see most of the time it is under the pressure requirement. This is the case that the pressure of the system was too low. In the other case, for this system over here, the pressure is way too high, it needs that much, but most of the time, sometimes it's even in the 70s. In that case, you definitely can speck down your pump or your drive a little bit to save some energy cost. They tested 31 center pivots in Nebraska. The results were a little bit surprising. 55% of the tested center pivot had pressure below requirements. I just emphasize the importance of knowing your pressure of your system, not only at the pivot point, but it's more important to know the pressure at the very furthest end of your pivot. Right now there are lots of companies, for example, axons, they can put pressure transducers over there, it will help you monitor the pressure in real time. This just shows you example if there are problems due to pressure, this is what the field could look like. So make sure keep an eye on the pressure. Now, I'll talk just very briefly a little bit about pivot maintenance, and I think these are the probably most effective measures and that will help you a long way. There are some other things you wanted to check, but I'm not going to bother you with all that. The first thing is definitely winterize your system. I'm assuming you guys will have freezing temperatures as well. So make sure you typically c pivot will drain after every irrigation. But there's always a low spot. The water tends to log in there. You know, if there's a flushing knot or something, you know, make sure you flush that. And if you have a filter near your pump, make sure you, you know, drain that water out and properly winterize your system. And then before irrigation season, these are some I think probably most useful preventative maintenance that you can do and that will help you a lot during your irrigation season. The first thing is check your nozzles. What I mean by that is just simply drive along your center pivot and check if there's any missing nozzles. Why go out during summer, there's always the case, I can see a center pivot missing a nozzle here and there. During growing season, that will be painful to walk all the way and put that nozzle back on and this is the perfect time if there's no crop and drive over there, if you see an issue, put a nozzle on. The other thing is check tire pressure. The main reason is that it's an easy thing to do, but you don't once the growing season started, you don't want to If there's a flat tire, it's not very fun to go there and, you know, kind of fix that. And then check gearbox at each tower. So most of the time because of our weather, you will have water kind of condense in a box. So drain that water and, you know, refill oil that will help you send a pivot in a long time. The last one is flush the pivot. What I mean that is I'll show you this video, my pointer So most of the time at the very end of your pivot, you have a can like that. All you need to do is open up that can and you'll see some debris and gunk in there and so knock those out. And actually, you know, leave it open. Now turn your irrigation back on and you just flush that for a little while. That'll help. This linear, this sprinkler system is not running on surface water. It's actually running on groundwater, but still after every season, we always see there are a little bit dirt in there. Um, and that's if you do that flashing, that's going to help you kind of minimize as a preventative measure, minimize clogging of your nozzles. So these are some really easy and simple things to do, but I think it's going to, you know, help you to minimize some of the potential problems that's going to cost you more time than you wanted. Let me go to the next slide and So we'll talk a little bit now about efficiency or best management practice. This is a quite busy chart. But this basically shows you I have this example for surface water users. So all the efficiencies in every stage of water delivery or water usage. So I'll just use this as an example, and definitely this part probably won't apply to you guys. But in this case, from the reservoir to the gate, there is efficiency loss. So there's not much you can do here. Now, from your field gate to your center pivot, there is another efficiency loss. Again, that's on the hands of the irrigation or ditch company or your groundwater pipeline. Not much you can do there. Now, from your center pivot to your root zone, I highlight this. This is actually your application efficiency. I think this is the efficiency you should think about when you operate center pivot. This is something you can optimize and you see why you're going to have more effective water in the root zone and that's going to translate into biomass and yield. Then after that, from root zone, you want that water as much as possible to go to ET and stands for epor transpiration. And then out of ET, you want more perspiration rather than soil evaporation. So what does that mean? That means you always want quicker road closure to prevent water loss from soil evaporation because that doesn't do anything to help you grow biomass. It's transpiration from the plant that does all the job. And then from here, this is the efficiency of how that, uh, a photosynthesis process or the water process, how that translates into biomass. This is at the level of genetics. There's not much you can do. And then from this biomass, it will partition into yield. The important thing here is do not stress your crop during critical stages. That will make sure you have the highest at least you don't reduce the efficiency over there. Then that translates to the overall efficiency chain. Now, again, I think that application efficiency is something with some simple irrigation scheduling. This is something you can improve. I like to think application efficiency not as a whole season parameter because I think it makes sense if you think about that as every single time because later on if you factor whole season at different stage, a crop has different root zone depth and it just doesn't apply. For example, later in the season when it's really hot and crop is big and need water, you need to try sometime it barely for us in western Nebraska, your system can barely keep up with what your crop needs. But early in the season when crop doesn't need that much water, that's really the window you don't want to overaly water. One to prevent runoff, second to prevent leaching. You want to enough water to help your crop to grow, but not overdo that. That's going to drive the application efficiency much higher during those early stages and it has some side benefits as well, one being, it's going to save your fertilizer in the field and less leaching problems. I think that's something with some simple measure, you can easily improve. And you might ask, why do I care about that? This chart shows you the importance of efficiency. BWFI stands for Dotty Water for F. It's an institute in Nebraska, and they did this report efficiency gap. So they classify Nebraska in four zones. So this is where I'm at. I mean zone one. And zone four is eastern part of the state. If you look at this graph over here, the Y axis is a difference between irrigated and rain fat yield. Basically, your yield gain from irrigation as compared to dry land, and this is applied irrigation. If you look at zone four, you apply more irrigation, but there's not much gain here. Basically that's a flat line. Irrigation probably doesn't make that much sense. Zone three, you start to see a little bit increase you apply water, you will see a yield increase. Where we are in zone one in western Nebraska, any water you can effectively put down into the soil up to a certain point in a pretty good range, that plateau point is roughly over here, that will translate to yield gain. That's why efficiency is important. Think about every irrigation, not the whole season. Next, we talk about efficiency. What are some of the good tools you can use to help with that? I listed two probably most common, I think pretty much every state has that. One is crop water use report or ET report. This is what we do for growers in western Nebraska, we send this out during growing season. Every week, use a weather station and your actual water use will change. But this still gives you a rough idea that if you are in certain stage of that crop, what is the corresponding water use for last week and also what is forecasted water use for next week. It's a rough number, but I'll give you some idea. This week, my water use is 0.8 " and next week it's 1.5 ", something like that. Next thing is commercial sensor services, mainly so moisture sensors as shown over here. Probably this has already been discussed, so I apologize for some of the overlapping, but I still wanted to share with you if you use saw moisture probe, typically for commercial probe service, I don't assuming you will go out there and do the installation and retrieval. But if you contract a a contractor to do that service for you. It's basically in western Nebraska, it's 100 to $1,200 per probe per year. Most grower only put one probe in the field. And it's important because you only have one probe, it's important to choose the right location. This is something they always ask you. They will ask you, where do you want that probes to be at. I think this is a time if you provide a good location, it will give you the right information. Now, I'll show you one example. This shows you one field that's near to our center. Even from the satellite map, you can see there are some soil, some spots over here, over there, that's not that good. Here in my looks good. On the right side, this shows you a core yield map of the same field. This is the highest yield in green color. This is the lowest yield in red color, and this is in between, a little bit green and probably medium yield of that field. If it's you where to put that so moisture probe, Do you put over here, do you put over here or do you put over here? Depending on where you put it, it's going to give you very different results and you're going to use that results to schedule your irrigation. That's why it matters. We did a study and actually Angie did that, put different so moisture probes at all these locations. I'll show you the moisture probe that put in here and also here. What does that look like? This is a soil moisture probe chart installed at the good soil. So um at the highest yield place of that field. And axis is volumetric, so moisture content. Most of the time axis is time. Most of the time, I show the sensors from the second to the first, I think four or five sensors. I'm not going to show all the sensors here because it gets overly crowded. But if you just look at the first four or five sensors, it's in that very, very high range. So definitely very good soil throughout the season and it's typical chart that you see. What about bad soil? This is what a bad soil looks like. Same time. Again, the bad soil is we put it over here at the lowest yield spot. This is what that looks like. Same time measured from August 1st. I picked that time to September. Do you see that range over here? It is much, much lower. It's in the range of probably three to a little bit about 15 and here it's 30-40. These two probes are not calibrated, they're using factory calibration, but still that still gives you a good idea that this is lower. It has lower water holding capacity. The soil is much ndier than the soil over here. The other interesting thing is, if you look at the moisture chart, this is the shallowest sensor, SM two in blue color here, it responds to your water events first, uh when you irrigate, it will shoots up. It's not going to hold that water like you see over here, there is a gradual decline. That means the soil is holding that water, you know, it's declining slowly. This just goes up and it goes back down right away. It goes up to 17% and when you see a little bit stability, that's in 8% or something like that. So it's not holding water very well. If you put a moisture probe here and schedule irrigation, it's going to tell you don't irrigate that much. If you put some moisture probe here, it's going to tell you irrigate more. You need to look at your yield map or your soil map and decide the percentage of your respective soil and think about where to put that some moisture probes at. Also want to show some other emerging tools and equipment. The first one is a remote sensing product. So moisture sensor is great, but it only gives you, for example, one spot at a very large field and you're going to schedule your irrigation just based on that one spot. There are some companies they do remote sensing, so moisture or ET right now. The benefit of that is it will give you a spatial map over the course of time, a little bit different than some moisture sensors, but I think it's pretty innovative. The other benefits of that is when you install so moisture probe, you have a physical object in the field. So there's always some logistics, but when remote sensing, the only input they need from you is the irrigation rate, plug in date and what prop it is. But we're also working on some self powered wireless valves, especially for cases like that. So it will allow guys to put valves over here along the whole center pivot, and then you can regulate your water. This thing when the water flows through, it will spin, generate some electricity and the power on the valve open and close. It's still in the development phase with the company, and then this shows you a camera we mount on center pivot. The purpose of that is helping scouting the field for water stress, nutrient stress, and maybe even disease and weeds. That's developed by our program a couple of years ago. It's still in the process. We think that real pictures are always very helpful. If you can provide that daily, I think it's going to give you some meaningful values. I think that's all I have. I went a little bit over time. I don't know if there's questions or maybe we leave the questions at the very end, but thanks again for having me. Thank you, doctor Sell. Do we have any questions? If you have any, put them on the Q&A box. Now, I'll continue and compliment part of the conversation or presentation from doctor Shell, so I'll share my screen. Can you see my presentation? Is it on presenter mode or All right. It is a presenter mode, but you also have I think that you probably What about it now? Yeah. Yeah. It's perfect. Okay. Thank you. So continuing with that conversation. I just want to remind everyone that MSU extension materials are open for all regards anything. So if you have any complaint, you can fill it out through the USCA, but if not, we are going to make sure everyone is included. So when we talk about best management practices for center pivot, we want to comply with what we call the GMS, the generally accepted agriculture and management practices for irrigation water use developed by MDAT. So there are several practices that you can see there. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can scan that QRE code, or I can send the link later on and put it on the chat. But You can look through it and you're going to see some practices including system management, record keeping, which is very important. I'm going to talk about it later. Irrigation scheduling. I think doctor Yang Zeg Dan and doctor Zhao have covered most of it and additional reasons to irrigate, for example, frost protection, accgation, herbicide activation, among others, there's other application practices and nutrient leaching. Now, this is what I call the anatomy of a center pivot and when they developed in the 1950s, I think, they call it cell propel irrigation systems or now they are center pivots. But these are among the most common EO systemtes in Michigan. I think they go above 50% of all the irrigation systems. And they are common because the application efficiency ranges 85-98%. And when it comes to maintenance, we need to see the irrigation as a whole. One single thing or a little thing can trigger a big problem. So when you have, for example, sprinkler package and one part is missing, then it could be a big problem. Therefore, we want to check the irrigation system uniformity. Both overwatering and underwatering can cause problems, and at the end, we just don't want that to affect our farms economic return plus the environment. Okay. There is no perfect irrigation system. There are other factors and choices that might be affecting uniformity. Uniformity really starts with a system defined. That's what I call the foundation and think about what about if that spacing is just too wide. There won't be too much overlap, so some plants might be under stress while others they are receiving plenty of water. But if they are too close, that might be causing runoff. On the second part is operational conditions. Doctor o me about check the flow rate and pressure, which is the basics as well. Natural warner, that sprinklers does not last forever, so we want to make sure that all the rotating parts are not clogged or that might be affecting water flow and uniformity. Other environmental factors such as wind, field slobs, I don't know, uneven terrain there might be or even variable soil types that might be affecting the irrigation uniformity. So as I said before, or all the time, is use your eye meter, visually inspect your system, inspect, go walk along the system, and inspect for any leaks or any plugged nozzles. When we are doing this or mean checking our nozzles, you can use a drill bit the size of the nozzle size for sizing we according to the nozzle size and see how the drill bit fits into that. If it needs to be tight. If you see it goes very easily, that might be some indication that it's wear down. All rotating parts need to be functioning properly. Check for any signs of runoff across your field. An important part is make sure that the nozzle colors match the specifications on the nozzle chart. The second one is operational measurements and just because the water is flowing doesn't mean everything is good. Low pressure is a common problem. Think about when you go and check your overall health. They check your heart rate and your pressure and everything. Same as the system. It is The important part of the center pivot, if the pressure changes, then the flow changes and then we can have poor uniformity. After you turn onto your pivot, make sure to let it run for a little bit five to 15 minutes until the pressure becomes steady, should be ideal and check the pressure when it's likely to be lower. For example, the end of the pivot or when there is a high elevation, So those are things that we need to check if the pressure and flow rate matches your sprinkler chart is very important. If the pressure is used too high might be a sign of any plug sprinklers or the system is set up improperly, which can increase energy cost and pressure can also change the droplet size and the throw distance, so that can be part of the compaction. So a very basic measure that we can do is the CAT scan testing. For this, we are going to set up cups along the center pivots and operate the system at normal pressure. Set up your speed to deliver at least six tenths of an inch, that's the recommended rate. Usually the CAT scan testing varies with wind. So after 2.2 miles per hour, that might decrease the precision and if it goes beyond 11 miles per hour, then might not be valid. So there is a very simple way to create a CAT scan, and again, this is just an option. You can use whatever you have in hand, but you might have even better options at home. But a typical we use is 13 ounces disposable soda cup. If you are a regular buyer of McDonald's or Taco Bellt, you are going to get them pretty easily. We can use steep ties who does not have steep ties, and we usually do steal those step in fence posts. To create our CT scan collector to collect the volume of every CT scan, we use a 500 millimeters graduate cylinder and you're going to just go and collect every one of them and write it down. So MSU extension. MSU extension provides a pretty good irrigation uniformity spreadsheet where you can just upload your data and there are specific information that you want to grade down when you're doing the CAT scan. The first one is the application rate. The last slide I told you about the 6.6 tenths of an inch as a recommended rate. Also, what's your operating pressure the length of your evaluation area was the length of your pivot. The chkan space distance usually 20 to ten to 20 feet is the recommended the recommended. Distance and the number of Ketchikans collected. The diameter of tchkan it varies according to um, the diameter of your catching and cup. At the end, we are going to obtain a system uniformity coefficient, and that will tell you the condition of the pivot. In this case, we have a 79, so it goes below 80% that indicates poor irrigation system or poor uniformity and adjustments to the sprinkler package designs are necessary along with corrections to individual sections. So what do I mean with individual sections? Let's see this example. We have a pre retrofit coefficient uniformity of 75, where most of the times it's variable, but we have some big peaks. Those individual sections needs to be corrected and pay more attention. When they change the whole sprinkler package, they obtain a 94 94 coefficient uniformity. So let's put some numbers to the irrigation uniformity. We can have the annual cost savings of 2.47 " and let's say for an average acre inches applied for a corner saying production here in Michigan, it's about 7 ". So if we multiply that, we'll have a 3.3 " total savings per acre, and the average energy cost per acre inch in Michigan, it goes from 3.6 to 7.50 per acre inch. Let's say we have an example, size of field of 140 acres. So the total energy savings per year are $1,600 around that. Think about $1,600 more to your pocket if you have uniformity. Now, if we decide to change the whole sprinkler package, material and labor costs go approximately $6,500. So with the total energy savings per year, the payback period to update the sprinkler package is going to take approximately four years. Again, this will depend on the years we saw last year, some of the irrigators barely use the center pivots because we got plenty of water, thank God. So those things could change. Now, I usually like to put this picture and it says is distribution uniformity same as irrigation efficiency. You probably know the answer, but on the first one, the first example, we have poor uniformity and poor irrigation efficiency. On the second one, there is good uniformity, but we got pretty bad irrigation efficiency. Why? Because it goes below your root zone. Think about if you are doing chemication, you are pushing those um chemicals below the root zone, may go to the groundwater. On the third example, we have good uniformity and good irrigation efficiency. That's what we want. What is the solution for that There is only one irrigation scheduling, which doctor ng and doctor Zhao talk about it. Now, on the gums, they talk about additional reasons to irrigate and one of them is when using chmgation. Center pivots can be very useful on chemgation or pesticide application. But this can also increase pesticide migration to the groundwater depending on chemical properties, characteristics, and site conditions. We have sandy soils here in Michigan, some of them with low organic matter, so they are more prone to pesticide leion. And think about if you have a sprinkler application, that will be a loss of money when you are doing chemgation as well. It is important to mention that some pesticide labels prohibit application through irrigation systems while others restricts use to a specific systems. There are off target applications that they are violation to the label, and I'll talk about some of these later. As I said before, a major disadvantage of chemication is increased potential of contamination of sources of either surface water and groundwater, a proper backflow prevention safety devices are needed. Often a requirement of chemation labels needs an interlock that can prevent overwatering or areas when the distribution system stops. So we talk about or I show you the anatomy of a center pivot that quick snapshot and often one of the things we forgot when it comes to maintenance is the ungund. It's one of the most important pieces, but it's the most overlooked when it comes to maintenance. And everything is not that good, so end guns comes with challenges. One, it does not apply water uniformly even in low wind environments. It requires high pressure requirements. Probably sometimes you need a booster pump. And the third one, which is very important and is keeping the water of the public road. The water and publicly grows might put you at risk and potential lawsuits if there are major incidents. What to do when this happens. First one, visually inspect your end gun performance. As I said before, use your eye meter, look at the right angle from the pivolateral while it's screening water and see what is the pattern and the movement of the endgun. Is it correct? If not, if you see there is something major, you can use the Katchkin test. Another one to ensure that proper overlap with the main sprinklers and avoid overwatering into outer edges. One thing to check is the arc setting if it's correct. A typical design that will have a good cover edge is 100 degrees to the rears and 70 degrees to the forward. Again, all pivots are not the same, so check with your irrigation dealer if everything is correct. One thing that is typically malfunctioning control and gun kits can be a big issue. Calcining hand guns do not shut off properly and probably doing those road applications. Manufacturers provide operation and maintenance instructions for a specific end guns. The guidelines recommendations can be a help if you are trying to do some maintenance to your end guns and see if you want to figure out by yourself. They also ensure routine curve and optimal performance. I strongly encourage you to consult these resources or contact your dealership if you see any of these big problems. One of the big advantages of center pivot is you can do variable rate irrigation. There are two ways of doing VRI. The first one is with speed control, which is basically dividing your field into pie slices and You can either use soils or yield map or both together. These are usually inexpensive and there is no special hardware under sprinklers as needed as compared to the zone control, which is this one. Basically, the sprinklers are pulled on and off and the irrigation management zones does not necessarily need to be applied. It can be any shape or size. These require more money, first of all, and then also more management effort. Think about if you have overlapping fields, you can use that to reduce that. So I want you to take three things with you today. The first one to regularly monitor your field and the irrigation system to address any necessary repairs and maintenance needs, keep records. If something is just bugging you all the time, you might need to take a closer look at that. So that's why records are important and also check the sprinkler chart if everything is matching. And the third one is consider investing in a new equipment if necessary. We have a couple of resources that you want to check. For example, selecting pumping plans for sprinkler irrigation and center pivot system. You can just type MSU irrigation and it will lead you to the page. Again, if you want to help us to serve you better, you can fill out the agricultural water Uerage needs assessment. It's totally anonymous and confidential. I will pop the link in the chat. There is four of four of us, the embassy irrigation team, doctor Yan Zhan, Lenon Kelly, myself, Brandon Kelly. And if you want to stay informed about all the irrigation events, you can join our mailing list. It will ask you either your phone, your mail, or your address to see what's the best thing for us to reach you. If you have any questions, please reach out. Here's my contact information. I'm located in southwest Michigan. That's my area of coverage, but I can go beyond that. But thank you. Let us know if you have any questions. We got one question. Are there any plans for presenting on similar research on irrigation system efficiency BMPs in Michigan and the Water Use Advisory Council or the Council's Water Conservation and Efficiency Committee? I think either Linden. I'm not aware of that. Yeah. Angie, there's currently a three year grant that employs Angie and Brendan and I believe there's a midterm report and an end report. So both of them are in their first year, so we're a little bit hurried now. But yes, there is discussions about looking at productivity and accomplishment. I think there's also some discussions going on with the water conservation committee, a subset of that water council about just doing some general education for that committee on what we do to improve water use efficiency. Hey, Linden, to add to that, I do think that we put you on our plan of work for that subcommittee for later in the fall. That gives Angie and Brendan some time to compile some of the data that they will have collected this summer and to kind of get their feet underneath them. And then since there is the state damp for irrigation, at some point, this information will probably be shared with them as well. So Good points. Good question. And that follows right in our next program. It's going to be a discussion, sort of an update on water policy and what's happening in Michigan. And the person that just answered that question is Kelly Turner from Michigan Potato and she sits on the water well, she's on the water council by default, often representing a producer, and then is a member of the water conservation group.