LR firm offers farmers a way to conserve water

In order to conserve a declining amount of groundwater in the Delta, farmers are turning to technology to use the resource more efficiently.

Little Rock-based Delta Plastics announced Thursday it would give farmers access to software that can significantly reduce water use. The company, which produces polyethylene tubing for irrigation use, is now letting any farmer use its proprietary Pipe Planner program for free.

Pipe Planner determines the size of holes to drill in irrigation pipes to evenly spread water, improving efficiency. Without using the software to plan the irrigation system, water can pool in some parts of a field, while other parts receive little water. To ensure complete coverage, farmers end up using excess water.

The software reduces water use by 25 percent on average. For a 250-acre farm, Delta Plastics would have charged about $2,000 to use Pipe Planner.

Delta Plastics Chairman Dhu Thompson said the organization's ultimate goal is to reduce water use in the Mississippi Delta by 20 percent by 2020.

"While we are fortunate to live in a relatively water-abundant area, current trend lines regarding water availability in the Delta are troubling," he said. "It's clear that we must work together proactively to take steps to make sure that our farmers will have an adequate supply of water now and in the future."

Pipe Planner is based on a free U.S. Department of Agriculture program called PHAUCET. Delta Plastics billed Pipe Planner as an easier-to-use alternative with more features.

Keith Admire, director of the USDA's National Water Management Center in Little Rock, helped design PHAUCET. He said he thinks Delta Plastic's program will help bring the technology to more farmers.

"When they came to me, I was all in favor," he said. "The more people that use the tools, the more water is conserved."

Delta Plastics CEO Sean Whitley said some tasks take one-tenth of the time in Pipe Planner. The program runs entirely online, so it doesn't require installation, and the data is stored in the cloud. It has a mapping feature so farmers can visually see where tubing would go. PHAUCET outputs spreadsheets.

"[PHAUCET is] so incredibly user unfriendly it's hard for the average farmer to understand and use effectively," he said. "I refer to [Pipe Planner] as the TurboTax of pipe planning and irrigation."

Delta Plastic's move came six weeks after the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission released its state water plan summary draft.

According to the plan, the groundwater deficit could be as large as 2.3 trillion gallons per year by 2050 -- the equivalent of about 3.5 million Olympic-size swimming pools. Recently, water withdrawals have been double nature's deposits in the Delta.

Business on 08/15/2014

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