Drip irrigation, no-till combines for profitable long-term investment

By Larry Dreiling

Randy Uhrmacher is one of those types of producers who likes activity.

Currently, the Juniata, Neb., producer serves as president of the Nebraska corn Growers Association. That gives him a heads-up on farm legislation.

Uhrmacher is also a forward thinker when it comes to land stewardship. An early adopter of ridge-till production, his operation now has evolved into mostly no-till.

He's also moved his farm from gated pipe and gravity irrigation to center pivots. Now, Uhrmacher has taken one field and installed drip irrigation.

The concepts of advanced agriculture, from modern irrigation to biotech corn and soybean production were a challenge for Uhrmacher, who farms about 3,500 acres in Adams County, Neb. His operation is split into two-thirds corn and one-third soybean rotation, with half the farm under center pivot irrigation, 25 percent using gravity irrigation and most of the remainder in dryland.

"I've farmed since I got out of high school, but it's been very challenging," Uhrmacher said. "When my dad died (eight years ago in a truck rollover accident) we lost his experience of who to hire and we decided to go to bigger machinery because it's hard to find good help. Once you pay someone that money is gone, whereas with machinery, while it does depreciate on you, it's not all gone and has a value at the end."

Managing better

While Uhrmacher wants an involved style of management, he admits he's always busy with something. That's the reason for the switch from ridge-till to no-till.

"Our labor costs have gone up and fuel cost has gone through the roof. It seems we do a better job of managing our resources with no-till," he said.

Switching from gated pipe to pivots also helped in the change to no-till.

"It's just evolved over the years. Gravity pipe was the only way to do it years ago, but as we got more center pivots it's helped make that change.

Perhaps the most remarkable change on Uhrmacher's farm came two years ago when he installed a drip irrigation system in a 150-acre parcel of his operation.

"The field we've set up for drip irrigation is extremely flat. It took extreme amounts of water and pressure under furrow irrigation to get good stands," Uhrmacher said. "With new regulations going on line and the price of fuel going up we saw this piece of ground would be a good candidate for drip. Also, it's an odd-laying piece of ground because if I put a pivot on it, I'd lose as much as 40 acres because of a building site on the parcel."

When he saw a neighbor's drip irrigation that had been installed about five years ago on a 50-acre field, Uhrmacher did what a lot of farmers do when they see a neighbor doing something unusual--he got out of his pickup and started asking the neighbor some questions.

"I got to talking to him and reasoned this could be the right system for that plot," he said.

So far, so good

Of course, the initial costs are high. Uhrmacher had to rip up his field and then put in the "t-tape" or slotted hose from which water flows from 15 inches below the surface of the ground.

"You then have to ditch all your ends and make all your connections. Most of the expense is labor," he said. "We ripped the tape in ourselves then we had a crew in to tie up the ends."

After two seasons, Uhrmacher reports so far so good.

"It's been very good as far as efficiency is concerned," he said. "This year, on this 150 acres that we divided between corn and soybeans, we used about 1,600 gallons of diesel fuel to run our pumps compared with upwards of 5,000 gallons a year before on gated pipe. Plus, the runoff falls off the ends of the pipe, so with $3 diesel it amounts to significant savings.

"Plus, the crops are a lot more even than they were with gravity-fed irrigation. They just look better, or nicer."

Not having to set and move pipe is nice, Uhrmacher said, yet there still must be some work to be done to keep the drip system functioning properly.

"My enjoying this goes back to my childhood, when I was moving pipe all the time and seeing how much labor it took," Uhrmacher said. "I always thought if I could get some sort of tube and put it under the ground and run water that way, it'd be great, I guess my thinking was way ahead of its time back then."

Less maintenance,

more management

The installation did require Uhrmacher to install a new well, but the expense has been worth it.

"Maintenance is less work than a pivot, but it's more management. Nothing's perfect but it works for me," Uhrmacher said. "There's a 200-micron mesh filter that the water passes through before it goes through the drip tape. I have to clean the filter every so often. Fortunately I've got a good well so I don't clean it often."

Uhrmacher said he has heard his share of naysayers about drip irrigation and from those who've had bad experiences, but he's not anticipating them.

"Sure I have 150 acres of drip irrigation with a linkup every 10 acres of length," Uhrmacher said. "The risk for human error here, for things going wrong might be pretty high. Rodents could also be a problem, but so long as you keep the ground soft you shouldn't have any."

Still, any doubts about trying this process for growing a crop of corn?

"The regs for this stuff were such there were moments where you had to ask whether it was worth the hassle, but then I knew I had seen the long-term savings," Uhrmacher said. "I haven't put a pencil to it lately, but the cost of diesel has accelerated the payoff on the system to within seven years rather than 10 years. We also are watering 30 to 40 more acres on this system than we would be versus a pivot."

Improving genetics

Uhrmacher said he grows Mycogen and Stauffer corn and Stine soybean varieties.

"We grow varieties ranging from 108 to 116-day corn and forSoybeanswe grow varieties with maturities of 21 to 31," he said. "We try to get ourSoybeansdone before we get done with corn."

Uhrmacher said he's also tried to reduce his overall use of chemicals through stacked genetics.

"We try to change up our chemical family so we aren't dependent of glyphosphate," he said. "We use little of that product except on corn after cornfields.

"I'm looking at using more Liberty Link products on no-till corn and Roundup Ready on no-tillSoybeansso we don't use the same chemical all the time.

Those products are needed since gray leaf spot showed up at Uhrmacher's farm last year.

"Over the last couple of years I've also seen some leaf miners. They chew up the bottom of the corn leaves and open them up to diseases."

Another problem in the past year for Uhrmacher was drought.

"Our dryland corn really suffered in July," he said. "We also had a windstorm come through July 31. We didn't have any rain but there was a two-mile stretch that went down, but that's just farming.

"There were some spotty rains in August and the corn that got those rains looked pretty good and the corn that didn't get the rains, well, obviously there's no saving it."

Variable yields

All those weather variables meant crop performance varied in Uhrmacher's fields in 2006.

"These dryland fields were something," Uhrmacher said. "You could be walking in a row where there isn't anything and then move 20 feet and the ears look really good but move another 10 feet and see the ears have dropped back again.

"It's typical of a drought-stricken crop. We have some fields that look great and others that aren't worth taking a combine into."

On average, Uhrmacher's 2006 crop "wasn't spectacular," with dryland yields averaging about 160 bushels to the acre and irrigated yields averaging 225 bushels.

"We've taken our corn to several ethanol plants and feedlots in the area," Uhrmacher said. "I don't have a financial interest in any ethanol plants but I wish I had. There are times I could kick myself for not doing it, but at the time so many of our area plants were built they almost immediately lost money. Back then we were real skeptical of putting money into an ethanol plant, now it's a big boom."

In between upcoming planting season and harvest, Uhrmacher, in his guise as NeCGA president, will work to be on top of monitoring and effecting change to the 2007 farm bill with the help of the National corn Growers Association. It's another reason Uhrmacher installed drip irrigation: Affording the gift of time to devote to NeCGA.

"NCGA is proposing a farm bill that is a more county-based revenue based program rather than a price support program. With this type of proposal, that will hopefully eliminate a disaster program," Uhrmacher said.

Larry Dreiling can be reached by phone at 785-628-1117 or by e-mail at ldreiling@aol.com.

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Date: 2/15/07

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