Support for this study was provided by Georgia's Environmental Protection Division as a component of the Flint River Basin Water Development and Conservation Plan. Additional support was provided by Jerry Abts, Pivotrac.con, LLC, Denver, CO, and Automata, Inc., Nevada City, CA.

Rationale: Saving energy and time: Irrigation system operation is usually monitored at significant expense by farmers and their employees. When an individual's pivots or farms are distant from their farmstead, they often drive to the field several times each day. Yet when systems fail through loss of power or pipe rupture, operators are seldom on hand. When they have been maintained, pivot safety switches can shut a system, and in some cases its pumps, down, but without an alert, system valuable irrigation time is lost until the next field visit. Units such as the Pivotrac inform the operator at once by pagers and indicate the status of switches on all of their monitored systems.

In our EPD supported deployment, we monitored when systems was pressurized, a indication of pumping from directly attached wells.

Study Objectives: Pivotrac monitors were deployed at the Stripling Irrigation Research Park between 2001 and 2005 to aid in testing and evatuation of the larger array of on-farm sensors that we deployed and to determine feasibility for use by Georgia irrigators. Deployment on farms was managed by our Ag Water Pumping team.
Specific objectives for the Automated Ag Water Pumping project.

Methods and Equipment: Pivotrac units were attached to each of the Park's 5 center pivots. Irrigation events were monitored as on farmer fields. Pagers were supplied to SIRP employees. Additionally research and extension engineers evaluated their ability to report events in a timely and accurate manor. They also used these units to test modifications that would be employed on the larger farmer pivot monitoring program.

Results to Date: System Performance: In their deployment between 2001 and 2003, the 200 Pivotrac units' sensors, data logger, and cell-phone radio were powered by lead-acid batteries charged by the electric power of the irrigation system. This proved to be a challenge in Southwest Georgia at a time when more than half of the center pivots were powered by diesel generators. Charging could only occur during the irrigation itself. When battery power fell below 9.5 volts, the unit went into sleep mode, until the system powere was restored. This created a situation because a failure of a Pivotrac unit, loss of communication with the cell tower, or failure of a pressure gauge could not be distinguished from a unit that was asleep. Long periods between irrigation events, largely dependent upon rainfall frequency, and long periods between crop irrigation seasons meant that most irrigation systems were dormant most of the time.

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