Water Management

Are you an Illinois FFA student, teacher, or leader? The Illinois Corn Growers Association and Illinois Soybean Association have teamed up again to offer the 2nd Annual FFA Water Testing Challenge!

Investments in sustainable initiatives are becoming mainstream since long term resilience is a priority for the marketplace. Leaders not only have to focus on day-to-day operations, but also devise and monitor ways to protect critical resources. In agriculture, producers and consumers are moving towards a common goal of water, soil, and yield stewardship. Fortunately, new sustainability strategies and technologies appear in the market daily. However, in order to implement them appropriately, producers must join forces to evaluate options, optimize costs, and execute without hassle. Since water and land are interconnected, and have no sense of man-made property lines, the [...]

Perhaps farmers have been facing their most challenging decade ever. Water management has been an important issue that is discussed globally. The critical nature of water conservation and drainage can have a lasting effect on the investment that farmers and landowners make. Given the competitive nature of the industry, many service providers are competing on low price. Recognizing the delicate balance between price and equity might be the key to maximizing the investment. Traditional methods of conducting business may not be applicable in the world we live in today. Outdated techniques can lead to inefficiencies and intensifying volatility. Professionals [...]

Rain. Depending on the season and whether you do not have enough of it or perhaps too much, rain can lead to disappointing failure or a record-breaking crop. Agriculture is inextricably linked with water, yet those of us without irrigation have very little ability to control the amounts and timing of water that our crops receive. It is a critical ingredient to a soybean plant’s growth and development, but fortunately the combination of relatively good soils throughout Illinois and usually ample rainfall allow for high yield potential in many years. From time-to-time, however, rain may be insufficient, and your [...]

What will drive the next innovations in agricultural water technology? The February issue of Soy Perspectives highlights three individuals whose personal experiences drove them to develop new solutions to manage water more efficiently now and in the future.  When “Life-Giving” River Runs Dry Iran’s Zayandeh-Rood river may literally mean ‘life-giving,’ but its lower reaches began drying up decades ago due to years of mismanagement and overuse. One river section flowed through Esfahani, hometown of Amin Afzal, who later led a group of Pennsylvania State University researchers working on a breakthrough moisture sensor. “The river had a large impact on [...]