What Are The Potential Savings From Irrigation Automation?

What Are The Potential Savings From Irrigation Automation?

Tim Hammerich
Tim Hammerich
News Reporter
This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

We’ve been reporting this week on the advantages of irrigation automation. But what are the actual savings a farmer can experience by adoption this technology? Arthur Chen of Verdi says there are real dollars being saved in labor and real water being conserved with their smart valve system.

Chen… “ So typically in terms of labor savings, what we've measured in the field is roughly $250 to $500 per acre per year in labor savings on average. So of course that will depend on the grower and how they like to operate in their fields. But that's what we've seen across these 13,000 acres so far as the average. In terms of water, typically that's around 10 to 30% water savings on average. So of course that also depends very much on which region you grow. You know, if you're growing in, say, Fresno, and you're paying $400 to $500 per acre foot, that's gonna be very different from if you're growing in say, certain parts of Northern California where it's very cheap. With some of the technology that we have, for example, at the grow-level where we are the only commercial technology able to control water delivery, we can actually see water savings of up to 70% because of that ability to manage variability in a field and to do that variable rate irrigation.”

Verdi recently closed a $4.7 million seed round led by SVG Ventures.

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