About this Session

Irrigation Water Management Using Automation And Drones

Presented by:  Mike Hamilton, Instructor-Irrigation Educator, UADA
Presented by:  Wes KirkPatrick, Arkansas Farmer, Rondo Farms

        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 job 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.