# Watering Fields



## Buckaroo (Aug 20, 2014)

Ok,so I see people nearby that plant hay in their fields, and don't water it..? Then they go bale it a couple months later--which you can't do if you have sprinklers. My question is how are they growing hay without any watering system in sight? I went in the fields to check for sprinklers, and there weren't any source of a watering sytstem. How do y'all go about watering your fields?


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## Hugh (Sep 23, 2013)

If their property is perfectly flat, they probably flood irrigate. If there is a ditch running past their property, this is one way to tell. I doubt that growing hay in California in the summer without irrigation is possible. Flood irrigation is very common in California.


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## Buckaroo (Aug 20, 2014)

ok. Are you meaning a culvert?


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

It could be drip irrigation or high water table.


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## Hugh (Sep 23, 2013)

Here is flood irrigation:


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## 3string (Sep 8, 2014)

Whatever they are doing, I wish I could do it that way. I'm about sick and tired of moving pipe this year. When all my water is going I move 10 lines a day. It use to be 15 lines till I finally fit in a couple pivots


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## Hugh (Sep 23, 2013)

For flood irrigation, you need very level land. In California they use laser guided tractors to get a near perfect grade.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

3string said:


> Whatever they are doing, I wish I could do it that way. I'm about sick and tired of moving pipe this year. When all my water is going I move 10 lines a day. It use to be 15 lines till I finally fit in a couple pivots


I'm not sure what you mean by moving pipe, but I irrigate about 20 acres with the syphon tubes like in the video. I move my tubes about 10 times a day also. Gated pipe is better.


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## 3string (Sep 8, 2014)

Teslan said:


> I'm not sure what you mean by moving pipe, but I irrigate about 20 acres with the syphon tubes like in the video. I move my tubes about 10 times a day also. Gated pipe is better.


I have what some folks call side rolls. Wheel lines around here. And I still move some ball and socket hand lines.


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

Here we use rain.


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## Buckaroo (Aug 20, 2014)

Yeah, it seems like moving pipe to water is a LOT of work! That video is a great idea to irrigate your fields! Only thing, how do you get that canal type of deal-- and how do you get the water in there? Do any of you know how to do it?

What about the water wheels or water pivots. Have any of you used them?


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## 3string (Sep 8, 2014)

Another good thing I've seen with flood irrigation is NO GOPHERS! It drowns them out of a hay patch.


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## Hugh (Sep 23, 2013)

Buckaroo, We use wheel lines here in Montana. Some guys flood, bigger operations use pivots. To get water rights on your property, you ought to talk to a water rights attorney or real estate agent. (?)


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## Tjim (Feb 23, 2014)

We have 250 acres we haven't irrigated in 2 years with very little rain though we do have sprinklers. We have a high water table that has been staying high but if it begins to lower we will need to irrigate. It's established alfalfa, though; the new alfalfa had to be irrigated.

I used to have a field with no irrigation and flooding did more damage than not irrigating. Had it for 7 years and did around 5 tons/year.

That's about what we get now on the non-irrigated. That's quite a bit less than our irrigating neighbors but our quality has been exceptional getting us a pretty nice price so far.


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## shortrow (Feb 21, 2012)

We use flood irrigation in Southern Ohio. Happens at the least opportune time,and naturally from the sky. Usually when hay has been on the ground for a day or two.


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## Buckaroo (Aug 20, 2014)

Ok. How do you get the water irrigation culvert ditch type of thing? How do you get water in there?


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

Buckaroo said:


> Ok. How do you get the water irrigation culvert ditch type of thing? How do you get water in there?


Pump or gravity from a supply canal/pond/lake.


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## Buckaroo (Aug 20, 2014)

Can you build a canal?


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

Buckaroo said:


> Can you build a canal?


I suspect CA is much like Colorado in the fact that you need to own water rights. And most water rights are worth more then the land that is being irrigated. But yes you can build a canal, but you need the water rights to fill it. No one is building new water systems these days because it is way to costly with all the engineering and environmental concerns. It takes years in Colorado to build a new resevior if it is even allowed.


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## Hugh (Sep 23, 2013)

Teslan,

Can you give a couple of examples of the cost of water rights in Colorado? Here in our part of Montana, water rights sell for "about" $100 per share, and about 5 shares per acre are needed to irrigate. These rights are permanent but have a yearly maintenance fee of about $10 per acre. I have a feeling we are very cheap here in comparison.


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## Tjim (Feb 23, 2014)

I don't know where in California Buckaroo is but most areas are within water districts. The district charges a set fee for water delivery but they also maintain the canals and delivery systems. Some districts have several levels of allocation priorities. The charges per acre vary widely depending on the district.

We have one private well outside the district and so far there is no problem with regs. but if the water table should drop then there may be. Also I'm sure there are stiffer regs. further south into Callifornia.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

Hugh said:


> Teslan,
> 
> Can you give a couple of examples of the cost of water rights in Colorado? Here in our part of Montana, water rights sell for "about" $100 per share, and about 5 shares per acre are needed to irrigate. These rights are permanent but have a yearly maintenance fee of about $10 per acre. I have a feeling we are very cheap here in comparison.


It all depends on when the water rights were formed and if the water rights are reservoir or direct from rivers rights. The earlier the rights were formed the more valuable the water is. Because when it gets dry for example the water rights formed in 1960 are shut off well before the water rights formed in 1876. We have some water rights where they were formed in 1869. Right now they are worth about $150,000 a share. The amount of water varies based on the streamflow of the South Platte River. We have some other rights that were formed in the 1950s that are worth about $20,000 a share and that water is drawn from a large Lake that is able to fill in the wintertime from the South Platte because those rights are too new to be able to run in the summer. How many acre feet per share is important also.

Like your water rights Hugh don't contain very many acre feet it sounds like. We really only need 2 of our water shares to irrigate 140 acres with a pivot in a normal water year with good delivery of the water. It sounds like in your area of Montana if you wanted to irrigate 140-160 acres you probably would want $75,000 worth of water rights to irrigate.

We have to pay assessments to maintain the ditches also per year.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

Tjim said:


> I don't know where in California Buckaroo is but most areas are within water districts. The district charges a set fee for water delivery but they also maintain the canals and delivery systems. Some districts have several levels of allocation priorities. The charges per acre vary widely depending on the district.
> 
> We have one private well outside the district and so far there is no problem with regs. but if the water table should drop then there may be. Also I'm sure there are stiffer regs. further south into Callifornia.


From your profile it appears you are very far northern CA? Have you been hit by the CA drought this year?


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## Buckaroo (Aug 20, 2014)

I'm near Sacramento,CA. I think I'm just going to avoid the idea of putting in a canal. What would be the best way to irrigate your fields?


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

I may be missing something here, but water rights sounds like nothing more than a way to line the coffers of one government agency or another.

Here we drop a well, need more water? Drop a bigger well.


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## Kendel Davis (Aug 8, 2014)

Buckaroo, I don't know how many acres of hay your looking to irrigate but depending on the number you have options. Assuming you have a well, more then one well, or the option of drilling a well you can use the water you pump to irrigate. If you don't want to put in a canal or ditches, you could pump your water into gated pipe to flood irrigate in a similar manner. But it sounds like your not too keen on the idea of flood irrigation so your other options are pretty much Center pivot or side roll sprinklers. If you have a lot of acreage center pivots are the way to go. I've never seen drip irrigated hay, not saying it isn't possible but I'm guessing it would be a pain in the butt and not very practical.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

mlappin said:


> I may be missing something here, but water rights sounds like nothing more than a way to line the coffers of one government agency or another.
> 
> Here we drop a well, need more water? Drop a bigger well.


That's because you get enough moisture to trickle down and recharge those wells. In Colorado we have to have augmentation plans for most irrigation wells. The simple way of explaining that is we have to have to provide a way of replacing the water we take with the wells with surface water. Though it is more complicated then that.


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## Hugh (Sep 23, 2013)

Teslan,

Here in Western Montana ( with our local water outfit) a farm just down the road from us has 160 shares for 300 acres, and he really puts out the water with a big pivot and several wheel lines. These shares are about $16,000 on the local market, and his maintenance fees would be about $250 per year. (guessing here) We have 125 shares and converting our shares to miner's inches allowed, we can put out about 10 times more water than we need. We have 10 acres. We are warned that water can be "cut back to half" in drought years, but this has never happened in the last 100 years, according to our secretary. I bought an extra 75 shares about a year ago as an investment. The shares here can move from property to property and are not attached to the land. As you know, water in the West is everything. Some of the soils in the Western United States are unsurpassed by anything on Earth, they just need water. In the West, if you have a good loam and water, you are KING, regardless of the brand of car, tractor or church you attend. You guys back East are lucky with all that rain, but unlucky with all that summer heat. My thoughts...


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

Hugh said:


> Teslan,
> 
> Here in Western Montana ( with our local water outfit) a farm just down the road from us has 160 shares for 300 acres, and he really puts out the water with a big pivot and several wheel lines. These shares are about $16,000 on the local market, and his maintenance fees would be about $250 per year. (guessing here) We have 125 shares and converting our shares to miner's inches allowed, we can put out about 10 times more water than we need. We have 10 acres. We are warned that water can be "cut back to half" in drought years, but this has never happened in the last 100 years, according to our secretary. I bought an extra 75 shares about a year ago as an investment. The shares here can move from property to property and are not attached to the land. As you know, water in the West is everything. Some of the soils in the Western United States are unsurpassed by anything on Earth, they just need water. In the West, if you have a good loam and water, you are KING, regardless of the brand of car, tractor or church you attend. You guys back East are lucky with all that rain, but unlucky with all that summer heat. My thoughts...


Yes. In 2003 we sold some supplemental water rights called Colorado Big Thompson shares. That water comes from the western side of Colorado. The amount of water that it provided for farming was maybe about 5 days a summer, but yet it was worth $13,000 a unit. 30 units per share of our water rights that come from the South Platte. We have 7.75 shares. It was sold to cities. That sale saved quite a few farmers from bankruptcy. It bought us some new equipment and me a house and paid off a couple of debts. And we still have excellent water from the South Platte River. Though recently our water company has to be very careful to document the uses of the water and we can't waste any. If it's proven we don't put all the water to beneficial use we are afraid the state or other municipalities will be able to take it. Or from my view point steal it. Our ditch company spends over $50,000 a year or more on legal fees to protect our water rights.

Our water rights can move from farm to farm also, but only farms within the ditch company that already own shares.

Sometimes I think east of here it would be easier raising hay. There is usually enough rain to irrigate it. But then you have to fight that same rain to bale decent hay. So if it's not one thing it's another.


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## Tjim (Feb 23, 2014)

Teslan said:


> From your profile it appears you are very far northern CA? Have you been hit by the CA drought this year?


We are in California but are on the Cal/Or border. Yes the area has been hit by drought for several years however the area was fortunate that deliveries were still made. The lake is low though...next year could be nasty without a wet winter. Still we have been much better off than our southern neighbors. Also, as I stated, we have a high water table so far and our soil has excellent holding capacities so crops, including grain, can still be productive.


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## Tjim (Feb 23, 2014)

Buckaroo said:


> I'm near Sacramento,CA. I think I'm just going to avoid the idea of putting in a canal. What would be the best way to irrigate your fields


Do you have a local district that provides canal water delivery to your farm? Then all you need is turnouts and field ditches (easy to put in). If you don't have a district delivery system then wells are your only option. You could still pump into field ditches but sprinkling is your best option at that point. We have had good luck flooding hay ground but temps can't go very high and water NEEDS to drain well or the hay will be damaged. I know your temps are really high down there. You wouldn't be able to let water sit for more than a couple of hours in the heat of the summer.

Anyway you go I know you are in a high drought area and I wish you well. I understand hay ground is some of the first ground to lose allocation down there.

If you are near the Delta isn't your water table pretty high too? Just curious.


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## 3string (Sep 8, 2014)

Here we are usually issued anywhere from 2 to 3 acre feet per share. It takes about three quarters of a share of water per acre to get through the water season which is May through the end of October. A share to the acre is a lot better to raise alfalfa. Shares are selling now for around 5,000 a share. Like many of you have stated the water is worth far more than the land. It will get a lot worse as the Colorado river drainage is stretched to its limits. Here we seldom run low on water as we have good storage in reservoirs. We are charged around 15.00 a share for maintence and pond and canal cleaning. We are in the works to put in a hydroelectric plant which will double our assessment. But in the future we hope to generate enough revenue to run the irrigation company and hopefully enough money to fund money's to pipe our 18 miles of canal.


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## Hugh (Sep 23, 2013)

Teslan,

"Sometimes I think east of here it would be easier raising hay. There is usually enough rain to irrigate it. But then you have to fight that same rain to bale decent hay."

True - in part. I was born and raised in the East, and I spent 20 years preparing to move west.

The cool nights and hot days in the West are prime for growing many crops.

Alfalfa is native to the deserts of the Middle East. It is a drought tolerant desert plant and its evolution has imbedded within its genes the tolerance, and even the preference for heat and low humidity. Low humidity equals cool nights. Moist air holds heat, and this is the reason that the high temps in Indiana (or any Eastern State) can be 95 by day and the low 85 at night. The low humidity in the West gives us the gift of scrubbing off all of this day-time heat, and we can lose 35-40 degrees on summer nights. Here in Western Montana, we can have a high of 100F and a low of 55F.

This low humidity gives us a stronger plant with thicker cells, plus, the low humidity suppresses the many fungal diseases that haunt growers in the East.

The West is close to ports in the Pacific, and the export of Alfalfa to the Orient is a very big market. Thus, this big export market evens-out the price structure for us growers in the Western United States.

Sure, water can be a problem, but overall, count your blessings that you are a Western Hay Grower.


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## Buckaroo (Aug 20, 2014)

Yeah, I believe so. You would think it would be a lot of money to put in canals and so forth. I just want the most best way that you could do to irrigate your fields. What is a share? Also, what would be the best type of hay to grow in CA that would be easy to sell?


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## Tjim (Feb 23, 2014)

Buckaroo said:


> Yeah, I believe so. You would think it would be a lot of money to put in canals and so forth. I just want the most best way that you could do to irrigate your fields. What is a share? Also, what would be the best type of hay to grow in CA that would be easy to sell?


Dairy quality straight alfalfa is moving and paying really good right now. It's relatively easy to sell right now but make sure your TDN (total digestible nutrients) is 56 or above.

Export straight alfalfa is also doing well in our neck of the woods. Quality as far as nutrient value can be less than dairy hay but it must be put up clean and green.

You're not far from from both markets and have a shipping advantage. I suppose you could try a horse hay; there are some good markets in your area. BUT read some of the other threads here about horse hay first.

I still don't understand whether or not you have access to water from a canal or piped source our need to find water.


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## Ray 54 (Aug 2, 2014)

Buckaroo if you don't have water rights already you may be out of luck.Governor Moonbeam just signed a new law that the state, or if we get lucky a more local level of goverment will tell you if you can drill a new well and us the water from it.Paso Robles Ca the new wine capital of the world (if you believe the promoters)also one of the largest water basins west of the Rockies is getting ready to make water rights lawyers even richer. Big grape growers mostly non farmer investors want a water district and the socialists also want a water district.I and many other farms cannot figure what a water district that had no place to get new water would do, other than send a new tax bill. But with this new law there may be something for the new district to do,better to have locals than the state saying who can drill new wells.

Question for those not in Ca, the politicians keep saying Ca is one of only a handful of states that the states don't control the us of ground water.As I have had to put in a new well as a spring in use since the Mission days that never varied in out wet years or dry has not a drop in 2 years.I had to get a permit from the county heath department so they could inspect that I was not drilling into my septic system and that a good seal of concrete was put around the casing so polluted surface water doesn't get in the aquifer, all for the price of $475.But I could us what ever amount I could suck out of the whole.But now that is about to change when they get all the new rules sorted out.Unless you are rich enough to buy a well drilling rig, with the drought all well driller are booked close to a year out so if your not already in the system who knows if you would get a well or not.If I didn't hate the idea of dealing with snow and cold I would get out of Lala land.


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

Ray 54 said:


> Buckaroo if you don't have water rights already you may be out of luck.Governor Moonbeam just signed a new law that the state, or if we get lucky a more local level of goverment will tell you if you can drill a new well and us the water from it.Paso Robles Ca the new wine capital of the world (if you believe the promoters)also one of the largest water basins west of the Rockies is getting ready to make water rights lawyers even richer. Big grape growers mostly non farmer investors want a water district and the socialists also want a water district.I and many other farms cannot figure what a water district that had no place to get new water would do, other than send a new tax bill. But with this new law there may be something for the new district to do,better to have locals than the state saying who can drill new wells.
> 
> Question for those not in Ca, the politicians keep saying Ca is one of only a handful of states that the states don't control the us of ground water.As I have had to put in a new well as a spring in use since the Mission days that never varied in out wet years or dry has not a drop in 2 years.I had to get a permit from the county heath department so they could inspect that I was not drilling into my septic system and that a good seal of concrete was put around the casing so polluted surface water doesn't get in the aquifer, all for the price of $475.But I could us what ever amount I could suck out of the whole.But now that is about to change when they get all the new rules sorted out.Unless you are rich enough to buy a well drilling rig, with the drought all well driller are booked close to a year out so if your not already in the system who knows if you would get a well or not.If I didn't hate the idea of dealing with snow and cold I would get out of Lala land.


One of the many reasons i do not envy you californians. Not a fan of the piece of paper or whatever in everything I buy stating this is known to cause cancer in the state of California. Hopefully you make it through the wall of red tape.


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## Buckaroo (Aug 20, 2014)

Ok. Yeah alfalfa and grass hay are two hays that are normally getting sold over here. I just don't know if alflafa is better or grass. I do know that alfalfa can bring in some more money than grass hay. What do y'all think?


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## Tjim (Feb 23, 2014)

Buckaroo said:


> Ok. Yeah alfalfa and grass hay are two hays that are normally getting sold over here. I just don't know if alflafa is better or grass. I do know that alfalfa can bring in some more money than grass hay. What do y'all think?


Grass hay is moving here for around $120-200 a ton depending on the variety and quality. We sold all our alfalfa this year for $280-300. For us alfalfa yields higher as well.

A plus for grass hay is that it is not quite so susceptible to weed and pest damage as alfalfa in our experience.

Also consider drought possibilities (probabilities). Dryland grass is shallow rooted and may give a single cutting in the spring before drought dormancy where-as alfalfa can give 2 or more cuttings. In high water tables, such as ours, alfalfa may remain viable (though reduced in yields) throughout the season. In our dryland alfalfa we put down four cuttings this year. Grass would have gone dormant.

As far as market, with alfalfa as high as it is the grass market is opening a bit but there is so much off quality hay in California this year the market has fallen off some. But it still will have some good price possibilities if another drought year happens and the grasslands don't do well. Around here grass is grown primarily for personal use, very little is shipped out. But, then again the markets are far enough away that shipping is a bit of a problem. You are much closer and might be able to develop a local market.

But for either crop if the drought continues you will have to have your own well IMO. And, as stated above, if you are considering a well better do it quick (if you can get a well driller).

You may find some very helpful info here and at your local extension service for some of the questions you have.


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