A Week of Water & Land Management

In just my first week at my host ranch, I have learned a lot. I was introduced to flood irrigating, water gate management, land management, water dam management, fence building, and pipe irrigating. One of the biggest parts of my work days has been going through several fields that we are currently irrigating and analyzing the water movement throughout the field and planning on where we would like to move water once the current section has been properly watered. Using a method called leap-frogging, we move dams, normally three to four, down a water ditch to cover a great amount of land and get the water moving out towards the areas that need water. In some of the fields we use pipes with portioned openings referred to as “gates” running along the length of the pipe. Opening a section of these gates along the pipe allows water to travel out at a decent pressure which can then help the water to travel farther distances over time.

Some of the things that made me think there could be more efficient ways to get certain tasks done would include the way we would search certain ditches or small streams for “plugs” or build ups of debris that slow the overall stream movement and water level. Rather than walking and searching the entirety of one stream, what if there were to be a camera system put in place to help shorten the amount of time it took to find a trouble spot within the water. Then we would be able to reach that location and quickly get rid of the debris that is causing that area to be plugged, overall all being more efficient with time.

Some questions I still have around this week’s topics and activities would include: how exactly are we deciding how much water to turn out through the water gates on the property, and are there more efficient ways to clean screens that help to stop debris from entering and plugging pipes. I am also curious about how traveling through the fields will continue as the crops grow much taller and seeing past and through fields will become more of a challenge.

With all the information I have absorbed and been introduced to this week, I plan to utilize the knowledge gained from my first week and use it throughout the remainder of my time here. Being able to see and recognize when certain dams or gates should be moved just by walking through a section of the field, seeing if the current levels of irrigation are either satisfactory or still lacking will help greatly moving forward. Also, along with dam placement techniques that help the water to move into areas that should be more heavily irrigated it will be helpful in getting the crops to grow as efficiently and widely as they can before harvest.