SBIR-STTR Award

Center pivot irrigation systems are widespread across the Nation's critically water short regions. A common bias for irrigators is to give crops more water than is actually needed in order to cover uncertainties and ensure enough water is present. This practice leads to profound waste of water and energy. Providing just what the crop needs is the means to achieve profound conservation that can be scaled to cover vast regions. Remote sensing methods that accurately estimate crop water are being applied by HydroBio ARS in a program that will deliver irrigation prescriptions across farmed regions. Called Remotely-sensed Irrigation Control Expert System, (RICES) in our original SBIR application, this technology will heretofore be referred to as Targeted Irrigation Management (TIM). TIM uses methods that estimate crop water consumption based using reflectance bands in Earth observation satellite imagery that are combined with regional weather data. TIM is being formulated as an Internet-based service for automated irrigation prescription to determine the irrigation necessary to achieve a targeted yield. TIM will also provide archived data from past growing seasons through easily interpreted graphic interfaces so that growers and their agronomists can plan irrigation to enhance production while conserving resources. For designing and testing TIM HydroBio has teamed with the USDA-ARS Conservation and Production Research Laboratory (CPRL) located in Bushland, TX, through a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement. The SBIR grant supports testing of two TIM aspects necessary for commercialization: (1) Remotely-sensed Dual Coefficient (RDC) method for estimation of crop water use (ETa); and (2) use of satellite data to derive a plant vigor index as a surrogate for crop yield. Demonstration of the feasibility for these key calculations will enable SBIR Phases II and III to proceed with certainty. Three irrigation districts in very different climates are participating in the TIM program. The North Plains Groundwater Conservation District in Dumas, Texas covers the upper Texas Panhandle where water is being mined almost exclusively for center pivot irrigation. The Rio Grande Water Conservation District in the San Luis Valley, Colorado is working to reduce center pivot irrigation demand and reverse a regional trend of falling water tables that adversely affects river discharge necessary to meet interstate compact requirements. The Central Nebraska Public Power and Irrigation District, covering a large swath across southern Nebraska, represents comparatively wet conditions for comparison to the other two critically water short Districts. The three districts were chosen to provide a broad range of farming environments for consideration in the testing and design of TIM. Through the use of remote sensing, automation and Internet connectivity, TIM promises to provide center pivot irrigation prescription services efficiently and economically over regions of many thousands of square miles. Currently, there is no comparable commercial system in existence. The overall savings in water, energy and fertilizer through the use of TIM promises to be immense.

According to the USDA (2012) approximately 80% of the Nation’s consumptive water use, and over 90% in many western states, is used in agriculture. Groundwater provides over 50 billion gallons per day for agricultural needs. Long term water level declines caused by sustained groundwater pumping for agriculture are impacting the environment at large and the agricultural community specifically. Farmers are painfully aware of these facts because they affect the future livelihood of their farms and communities. Using software to streamline, automate, and reduce irrigation by as little as 10% can save the average farmer between $47,000 and $318,000 annually. Significant conservation can arise through rational irrigation and so, the economic incentive for the grower aligns well with the overarching need for agricultural sector to contribute to the conservation of aquifers, energy and other resources. HydroBio, Inc. developed an innovative software product, Targeted Irrigation Management (TIM) to provide farmers with an easy-to-use irrigation decision support system that is being applied initially for center pivot irrigation systems. The software uses weather data and Earth observation satellite (EOS) data analyzed through proprietary methods to estimate the precise water needs of each field. Coupled with online pivot monitoring and control units TIM automated software enables the grower to deliver an optimal irrigation strategy to his field from his computer, tablet, or smart-phone that includes (1) the previous day’s water use map, (2) daily and weekly irrigation schedules based on crop water use and soil water banking, (3) strategies for preparing and storing soil water to meet irrigation deficits during times when crop requirements exceed pumping capacity, (4) pivot speed control to apply the exact amount of water to different crops, the same crop started at different times, or serving sectors of the field that grow with different vigor, and (5) data storage and retrieval to permit the grower to assess for each field what has worked best and where to improve, all at a granularity of one-ninth of an acre. HydroBio received a USDA SBIR Phase I award that funded the transition between conceptual science and proof that TIM is sound and commercially viable. Phase II funding will enable gathering and testing the data necessary for launching TIM commercially. These data include measurements of soil water, enhancing workflows, and proofing data input and output in a 2013-2014 beta test on a target population of 250 center pivots in the north Texas Panhandle. In response to grower requests, a suite of TIM tools was developed during Phase I to provide maps, updated every 72 hours, upon receipt of new EOS data, of relative crop yield, potential crop problems (e.g. pests), and for optimizing inputs for the crop to enhance return on investment. Through the medium of the internet and wireless technology, coupled with responsiveness to irrigated agriculture needs and grower feedback, HydroBio aspires to provide scalable tools for precision irrigation and crop management delivered throughout the world. Phase I funded the transition from conceptual science to proof concepts and data calculation necessary preparation for on-the-ground, near real time, and sub acre precision agriculture. Phase II funding provides a final transition from beta test to full commercialization.