This Thursday, December 1 at 1:30 Central Time, you are welcome to join us in an informative and fun Webinar. The topic is Irrigation Management of Corn and Sugar Beets. Click here to go to the registration site and we look forward to meeting you then.
If you have any problems access the meeting, please call us at 856 691-1970, and our assistant, Cherish Nielsen, will guide you through registering for the meeting.
Every crop has an imaginary bucket of water that must be filled close to the rim without going over it in order to achieve maximum yield. Keeping that bucket full of water has been a challenge since farmers first started tilling the soil.
In three years of testing at the Edisto Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Blackville, S.C., Clemson researchers have succeeded in keeping the bucket full for watermelons. Similar work in the Delta has done the same for cotton.
The silver bullet used in both places is a soil moisture sensor that checks the water profile of these crops and provides data needed to turn on irrigation systems when the water bucket gets down to 15 percent and when the bucket reaches 65 percent capacity. The results have been nothing short of phenomenal in dry years and significant in wet ones.
Gilbert Miller, a horticulturist and researcher at Clemson University’s Edisto Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Blackville, S.C., heads the soil moisture monitor project. Miller says there is nothing magic about managing soil moisture, but good management is predicated on knowing what is going on in the soil and these probes offer a good opportunity to give growers the information they need to make good water management decisions.
David Lankford, a Del Marva farmer and general manager of Earthtec Solutions, says, “We are using what we call a multi-level capacity probe with dual frequency. With one frequency we measure moisture and with the other we measure moisture and salinity. By subtracting the moisture from salinity, we can determine salinity,” Langford says. Each probe is set at 4 inch increments down to 20 inches, explains Lankford, who was instrumental in helping Miller acquire the grant money needed to conduct on-farm testing of this water management system. [Read the rest of the Southeast Farm Press article here]
Excelling at delivering results and communicating strong commercial awareness is our specialty. Earthtec Solutions works closely with clients that are consciously proactive on sustainability initiatives and who are seeking to track economics, environmental and social metrics over the business planning cycle. Our methodologies can translate sustainability visions into a comprehensive program of targeted initiatives that can be tracked using clear metrics. Adviroguard software is specifically designed to generate the most value for the organization trying to make a real difference.
Jay Baratelli, Global Business Development Manager
Gilbert Miller’s watermelon field talks to him. Visitors can eavesdrop on the conversation during a July 12 Watermelon and Vegetable Field Day at Clemson’s Edisto Research and Education Center.
The Clemson University Extension area vegetable specialist can turn on the computer in his office at Edisto REC and download a three dimensional picture of soil moisture and nutrients from a series of test plots designed to pin down the causes of hollow heart, a condition which makes melons unmarketable.
“I have four solar-powered sensor stands which collect information on soil conditions and another that collects weather data,” said Miller. “Every two hours they trigger a cell phone call to a server in New Jersey, where EarthTec Solutions puts the data in chart form so I can access it on the Internet.”
The next step is to run a fiber optic line to the field so he can have a direct connection to the Internet, cut out the cell phone and access data in real time. A handful of vegetable producers in South Carolina already use wireless technology to monitor field conditions.
“It helps them control costs and produce higher quality crops,” said Miller. “They save on fertilizer because they apply the right amount of water and don’t wash the nutrients below the root zone.”
Sensors supplied by EarthTec monitor moisture and salinity (nutrient) levels vertically and horizontally at depths of 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20 inches. Miller has four treatment plots, one for each sensor array. One receives the standard Extension recommendations for timing and amounts of water and liquid fertilizer through drip irrigation. In the other three he deliberately shortchanges the watermelons of nutrients, water or a combination of the two, followed by an overdose in order to see which triggers hollow-heart. [Read the rest of the Southeast Farm Press article here]
A good way to talk about sustainability is to talk about the “system”, especially when resources such as energy, food and water are at stake. Because more than two-thirds of businesses are strengthening their commitment to sustainability, according to a new study by MIT Sloan Management Review and the Boston Consulting Group, our Intelligent Interpretations are designed for organizations pursuing and investing in real sustainable growth. What an organization pays attention to can play a big role in whether there is success on this important front. Sustainability begins with the simple act of paying attention to quantifiable intelligent interpretations as one can’t manage what one can’t measure.
If we look at the big issues in the world for the next 10 years, water is getting bigger, and our technologies are centered on supporting organizations who seek to reduce their water footprint. Businesses have been able to proceed essentially as if water and energy were virtually free. This will no longer be true.
We recognize the importance of having a global water strategy. For the company in search of assembling such a strategy, we understand the full range of issues and challenges around water and can turn a risk into an opportunity, especially because we have a deep expertise in water physics below the soil surface. Our expertise can assist an agricultural division manage water to a much more sophisticated level. These proficiencies contribute to increasing water and nutrient efficiencies, reduce fertilizer waste, decrease fertilizer runoff into regional water supplies and increase yield.
Fundamentally, sustainability is about the need to call attention to doing things differently in an economic sense, an environmental sense and a social sense. At Earthtec Solutions, we help organizations reshape themselves in new and better light, all of which is made possible by our Adviroguard™ Interpretive Analysis Software.Plus it takes a comprehensive supply chain analysis process to identify how many barrels of oil and how many gallons of water are in everything produced. We are convinced that the public is going to become much more aware of such indices.
No matter how much water is available to eastern Colorado these days, there is never enough. Farmers need supplemental irrigation from the region’s rivers and aquifers. Sprawling Front Range cities have their eyes on it, too.
“Water conservation and utilization are critical issues agriculture must deal with,” says Charles Corey, executive director of the Irrigation Research Foundation in Yuma, CO. More than 300 tests conducted on the foundation’s 145 acres bring technology and crops together with those goals in mind. Read the rest of the Farm Press August 2010 article here.
2/22/2011 (Vineland, NJ)
New Jersey based agricultural software firm Earthtec Solutions LLC announced the launch of their new company Website (www.earthtecsolutions.com) and company blog (www.earthtecsolutions.com/blog) Please visit these sites to learn more about Earthtec and their products and services.
Earthtec provides crop management software tools to customers that are looking to manage watering schedules, fertilizer applications, and aid in crop decisions. Our system provides a real time management tool that will show you when and were water is needed during the critical production cycle of the plant, helping to conserve water and eliminate waste.
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