I have 20 acres of pasture that I want to get the hay out of. I have two small ponds that I could draw on for water. It would seem that I would be wise to set up an irrigation system.

I'm thinking that there are two approaches I should consider: the kind where you have a long row of about 20 sprinklers and you move the pipe each day; the kind where you have one super huge sprinker that covers a very large area.

Anybody have any idea how much this sort of thing might cost? Anybody have any other ideas how I might irrigate? (everything has a bit of an incline, so flood irrigation is out)

-- Paul Wheaton (paul@javaranch.com), July 28, 2001

Answers

if your on an incline,, why cant you flood the top (upper) part and let in run down? Might want to disc some rows downhill to help it along

-- Stan (sopal@net-port.com), July 28, 2001.

Paul, please consider the cost of pumpingthe water as opposed to buying hay, and using the field as a pasture or renting it part of the year. We here in the state of Idaho are experiencing terrible increases in power and that makes irrigating a costly practice. As it is they have taken all of the ditches our so you can't flood irrigate any more which would be more cost effecient

-- Diane Brown (oleoranch3@aol.com), July 28, 2001.

Paul, I hate to be a wet blanket, but "two small ponds" will most likely not give you enough water to irrigate 20 acres, unless you've got some strong springs feeding them. Perhaps you do.

I don't know where you live, or its climate, but you'll likely need about sixty plus acre feet to water the 20 acres for a year. That's the equivalent of a 20 acre pond, three feet deep. or a one acre pond, sixty feet deep. Another way to visualize it is 19.5 million gallons of water.

I'd figure out how much water you have available before spending the time and money to install irrigation.

JOJ

-- jumpoff joe (jumpoff@ecoweb.net), July 28, 2001.

Fllod irrigation: the pond is in the valley of our property - to flood irrigate, we would have to pump the water up first. As long as we're pumping, we might as well sprinkle.

I think we will have to get a gas powered pump. It's a long way to electricity from the pond.

Here's our situation: We're in eastern washington (just a few miles from idaho) and this is the second year of drought. It sounds like there is hardly any hay harvested in area. We just moved onto the property around June 1 and nobody fertilized the hay pastures this spring. The folks that were here before us said they usually harvested the hay around the fourth of july. A friend looked at it and said there wasn't enough growing to bother haying - wait a few weeks. By then, the hay was so dried and dead it wasn't worth haying that either.

Well, we need to have some hay to get animals through the winter. And it sounds like the few people that were on top of things got about one third to one quarter of what they normally get. I suspect that the price of hay this year might go beyond ten bucks a bale.

I have two months of growing season left. Compared to other property around here, we're loaded with water. We have a big pond that is full and 90% of the water comes from springs on our property. The rest comes from property owned by a paper company.

I'm thinking that if we can irrigate and throw on some fertilizer, we might get a few tons of hay. Not only will we get enough to take care of our animals through the winter, but we might be able to sell some too!

As a kid I remember getting paid to move irrigation pipe. Twice a day, 40 pipes. But since then I have seen those huge sprinklers and wondered if they chewed the ground up too much. Also, how much does this stuff cost?

-- Paul Wheaton (paul@javaranch.com), July 28, 2001.

Although our creek is small, I think there is enough running off our land to support a sprinkler system. Probably as much water as you say. I would guess that there is about 50 gallons per minute running off of the property right now out of the lower pond.

-- Paul Wheaton (paul@javaranch.com), July 28, 2001.

Here are some pictures of the ponds last fall: www.javaranch.com/farm

-- Paul Wheaton (paul@javaranch.com), July 28, 2001.

Beautiful place Paul!!! Here in Michigan the irrigation systems seem pretty expensive and require huge amounts of electricity to run them. We used a pool pump once summer to pump water out of the creek up onto the garden. Our neighbor has an old tractor that he uses to pump to his irrigation system. I would sure want to make enough hay for my own stock at least if I were you. Maybe figure out how many tons you would need and go from there. Hope that you can figure something out soon. I would think that even garden sprinklers on a few acres would be better than nothing.

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), July 28, 2001.

I'd be careful about using water as far as legalities go, too. If there's a stream running through or even just from your property, someone else may be legally entitled to the use of it. If you dry it up you might be in trouble, particularly in drought conditions.

If that's covered, you may be better off irrigating a smaller area, and growing a forage/silage crop intensively. Maybe something like half an acre or an acre of sorghum or something like that, with a lot of nitrogenous fertiliser. Cheaper for irrigation plant on a smaller area too. You may not get hay out of it, but you ought to be able to at least get silage. You may even get one cut of hay, and be able to use the second growth as silage.

Do the sums, as jumpoff joe said. Figure out how many inches of rain equivalent you'd need, divide that into the volume of your ponds, then that should give you the area you can afford to irrigate. Be cautious in your figures. You don't want to use all your water before autumn rains come, if they do.

If winter food is your concern, don't forget the old-fashioned forage crops too. Kale can go on growing long into cooler weather, then stand in snow until it's eaten. There are others to bear in mind for next year too - field turnips, mangolds - but I doubt you'd get a crop out of them this year.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), July 28, 2001.

Is there a good web site on silage? I've never even seen this practiced.

-- Paul Wheaton (paul@javaranch.com), July 29, 2001.

I irrigate, (when I have water) 23 acres from a creek. I have a 7.5 HP Gould's single phase 240/pump that runs about 160 GPM. I have 2500' of burried 4" pvc with risers every 60'. I use a water cannon that covers 150 feet diameter, (@ 60 PSI) and use flat hose which I can move quickly.

The pump new would cost $1800-2000, the gun runs about $600. 2" flat hose is a dollar a foot, I buy 50' rolls, 2" risers are $35 a piece and the valves are 50-60, I get by with 9 valves. I have 500' of 2" by 20' aluminum hand line & 50 3/4" Rainbirds. all of this stuff is availabel used but still it is expensive. I would say if you have a 25-50 HP gas or diesel pump, and enough flat hose you could get into business pretty quick but expect to be in spending a lot of $$ to get started.

-- hendo (redgate@echoweb.net), July 29, 2001.

Paul, remember www.google.com

I have only once known it not to return relevant information. Go there, type in a search phrase (say "making silage" in this case), and go through enough of the results to give you the answer. In your case, you might well be looking at making and storing it in an old- fashioned silage pit, rather than silos; so maybe try something like "silage pit" as well.

Also try your local agricultural information resources - is the term "extension agent" right for you?

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), July 30, 2001.