Growing more with less water

EAGLE COUNTY — Crawling through the pastures at the Albertson Cattle Company in Burns, high above the Colorado River and on the edge of the Flat Tops Wilderness, is a 900-foot long sprinkler system that looks like a giant robotic caterpillar.

The caterpillar takes it time, slowly inching through about 80 acres of grass on big black wheels. Dozens of spray nozzles hang off its belly, and a large water gun is perched on its head. This crawling irrigation system is designed to apply the perfect amount of water so the grass can grow, be cut down and turned to hay without waste. It all works by gravity.

Just two years ago, these 80 acres of pasture were regularly flooded with inches of water to get the grass growing. When you flood fields, a lot more water is used than what the grass actually needs to grow.

Now, two “gravity-fed pivots,” or crawling sprinkler systems, do the irrigating. These “pivots” use about 70 percent less water than flooding but end up producing more hay than ever. “The productivity is getting close to double what we used to do,” said Kevin Wahlert, a rancher at Albertson Cattle Company.

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Source: Vail Daily

For more information on water conservation, visit www.nuprana.com