Farmers embrace technology to succeed

MONTROSE — Farming innovations through irrigation and tillage have helped third generation farmer Randy Meaker increase efficiency in the field.

Members of the Shavano Conservation District visited his farm on the Gunnison Watershed Tour on Tuesday to observe the results of his implementations.

Standing in front of his tractor equipped with a Precision Tillage 1tRIPr strip-tiller, Meaker explained how he can now till 100 acres in one pass.

"So I've farmed 100 acres to receive the production off of 100 acres," Meaker said. "On a conventional tillage program where you disc and plow and disc and roll and all those things, you've gone over it eight times and farmed 800 acres to get 100 acres of production."

The approach he's taken to irrigation, using a center pivot sprinkler rather than furrows, was first thought to be unworkable in the region because of the soils. 

"There had been no success with previous sprinklers," Meaker said. "They were high pressure systems. Well, high pressure means that you've gotta have a lot of horsepower and a motor to develop pressure. So they were very expensive to run."

He said the sprinklers would be attached to the top of a pipe 11 feet above the ground that shoots a stream.

"Wherever the stream of water comes down it literally will compact the surface of the ground," he said. "Well, with the clay in our soils, once you get that initial compaction, you're done."

A center pivot sprinkler was put on Meaker's farm as a demonstration in 2003, with help from the Colorado River Lower Basin Salinity Control Forum.

"We said 'We can make it work,'" Meaker said. "There was a lot of contention going on back and forth because their programs basically said we want to promote center pivot sprinklers, but the field offices were saying 'It won't work.'"

The sprinkler uses a hydraulically controlled pivot and has proven successful enough for expansion of the demonstration site in 2005 to cover a 92-acre field.

Since the Gunnison Tunnel became operational in 1909, local farmers used furrow irrigation systems, Meaker said.

These consist of water "going down in rows every 30 inches from a ditch," Steve Hale, Shavano Conservation District Supervisor said.

Although this was common, it was not necessarily the best way to irrigate, especially with regard to water conservation.

Meaker said the sprinkler systems are "85 to 90 percent efficient" whereas the furrow irrigation is "probably maximum 50 percent efficient."

Irrigation water management specialist Randy Kremer said that although Meaker's the only farmer using the 1tRIPr strip-tiller, there are about a half dozen others using minimum tillage techniques.

"The margin of profit is just the thing that's gonna keep a guy out here," Kremer said. "It's gonna be the difference between people that are still here and the ones that are by the wayside."

Meaker said farming strategies similar to his are being used by others.

"What's happening is the more progressive farmers and the bigger farmers are the ones that are making this move," Meaker said. "Guys that are literally serious about being in the business — and so even though there's only half a dozen or maybe a dozen farmers already doing this, they're actually controlling a pretty good number of acres that is being farmed here."

In addition to the Lower Basin Salinity Control Forum, Meaker has received assistance from the federal government through the 2002 farm bill's Environmental Quality Incentives Program. He said this has been helpful, but that farmers don't take such a decision lightly, as they are typically "locked in" with the program for about 20 years.

"Call it an incentive," Kremer said. "It's an incentive for him to take the dive to a better unknown."

Contact Robert Allen via e-mail at roberta@montrosepress.com