Wes Kirkpatrick

Arkansas Farmer|Rondo Farms

2023 Abstract - IRRIGATION WATER MANAGEMENT USING AUTOMATION AND DRONES: While technology has positively impacted many aspects of production agriculture, labor shortages are still a growing issue on today's farms. Although many of these advances have helped, irrigation is one of the most labor-Intensive jobs on the farm. In 2022, we began looking into irrigation automation with telemetry on 5 Arkansas Discovery Farms to see the impact it could have on a large operation. We will discuss the success and failures of the automation system as well as other Irrigation Water Management tools used, including RTK drones for elevation designs to increase the irrigation efficiency.