The Problem
Brothers Chris and Harold Perry farm in Coaldale, Alberta. Their land has topography challenges such as hills and depressions that can cause variability in the quality and quantity of their potato crop. In portions of the field with depressions, the potatoes are susceptible to rot; in the hilly areas where it is a challenge to retain enough water, potatoes are typically smaller and yield is lower.
The brothers also experience storage challenges that result from potatoes grown in fields with varied topography, primarily in low areas or depressions. The potatoes from these areas typically need to be shipped to the processor earlier, which means the Perry brothers are paid a lower price for the potatoes. The longer a potato crop can be stored, the more valuable it is to the grower. With a higher quality of harvested potatoes, there will typically be fewer storage challenges for the grower during the storage season.
The Solution
The Perrys wanted to evaluate the benefit of using a variable-rate irrigation (VRI) system. To do so, they installed Trimble’s Irrigate-IQ solution on a seven-tower pivot with a corner arm to apply a variable rate of irrigation to a 127-acre field. However, in a nearby 132-acre field, they grew another crop of potatoes and used a pivot that did not have a VRI system installed. This gave the Perrys a side-by-side comparison of VRI and non-VRI production.
“Variable-rate irrigation allowed us to control every area of the field and monitor that throughout the growing season,” says Chris Perry. “We took UAV imagery of the crop every week as it was growing, then changed the amount of water we were applying via VRI depending on what the images were telling us.”
The Perry brothers decided to try the Irrigate-IQ solution because it had the level of precision they were looking for, and it enabled them to control every sprinkler nozzle rather than a bank of sprinklers. Also influencing their decision was the fact that the Irrigate-IQ solution had VRI capabilities on the corner arm.
“We want to control every sprinkler because that provides the opportunity to control the field down to the smallest pixel possible,” says Chris. “The goal is to create quality and uniformity throughout the field and to deliver the best quality potato into our customer’s hands.”
In addition, providing a consistently high quality product helps ensure continued purchases by the Perry brothers’ customers and solidifies those long-term relationships.
The Return on Investment
Nearly 100 percent of the VRI field’s potatoes were put into long-term storage without concern for rot, whereas in the non-VRI field, 80 percent of the potatoes had to be shipped directly to the processor from the field.
The VRI field resulted in 10 percent more acres harvested—a value of about $67,350 Canadian.
In one crop season, the Irrigate-IQ solution more than paid for itself in increased yield alone.
“Without a doubt, the VRI system did a better job irrigating than the system that had no variable-rate irrigation—it was certainly a success,” says Chris. “We were able to put the potatoes from the VRI field into storage comfortably so there was less spoilage or rot issues as compared to the field next to it. For fields that vary in topography and soil, using variable-rate irrigation absolutely makes a difference.”