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Crop Water Allocation for Limited Ground Water

Published by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, St. Joseph, Michigan www.asabe.org

Citation:  Paper number  052187,  2005 ASAE Annual Meeting . (doi: 10.13031/2013.18956) @2005
Authors:   Norman L. Klocke, Loyd R. Stone, Gary A. Clark, Troy J. Dumler, Steven Briggeman
Keywords:   Limited Irrigation, Deficit Irrigation, Decision Model, Groundwater, Economic Optimization

Irrigation scheduling decisions for irrigation managers with limited water resources are not made on a daily basis like those managers with fully irrigated systems. Irrigation managers with limited water supplies from restricted well capacities or water allocations need to anticipate crop selections, plan for crop rotations, and project water deliveries to each crop. A water allocation model, the Crop Water Allocator (CWA) has been built to evaluate growing season water allocations among 2 to 6 crops over 5 possible divisions of land area. Users input crop prices, production costs, irrigation costs, and maximum crop yields. The program iterates water allocation by 10% increments over all possible crop combinations and a chosen land division. Net economic return is calculated for each crop mix/ water allocation/ land division combination. Net returns are ranked and several of the highest are presented to the user for evaluation. The influence of one variable, such as commodity prices, crop yields, annual rainfall, irrigation system efficiency, and irrigation operating costs on net return can be evaluated through multiple executions of the model.

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