Installing an irrigation pond on your property can offer several benefits, including water security, improved crop production and reduced long-term costs arising from the need to purchase water. Increasingly, irrigation ponds and other water conservation efforts may qualify for state and federal level cost-sharing or tax abatements.
Irrigation water is becoming more and more troublesome to procure, especially in arid western parts of the country, and in densely populated regions like Phoenix AZ, Scottsdale AZ, and Los Angeles CA. The immense Colorado River has been overdrawn by cities, industry, and farmers and ranchers across 7 states: Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, California, and Nevada. The country’s largest reservoir, Lake Mead, has reached historic lows, and some agricultural areas of Arizona have been cut off from water supplies altogether.
In the Northwest, surface water allotments are being reduced and are increasingly unreliable. Additionally, recycled municipal supplies can be prohibitively expensive. In the East, precipitation is still plentiful, but now, it often arrives sporadically in heavy storms, rather than regularly in smaller amounts that can easily be absorbed by the soil and used by thirsty crops. Elsewhere, ground and surface water quality is dropping rapidly, making it a less than ideal choice for agricultural and livestock operations. When groundwater levels fall due to overdrawing, farmers, ranchers, and rural homeowners are faced with drilling deeper and deeper wells, which may soon fail as well. It’s a devastating cycle.
Building and integrating an irrigation pond into your operations can save substantial money in the long run, but even more important, it can reduce your reliance on increasingly volatile traditional sources. Depending on several factors, including the construction and climate, a 2-acre pond, with an average depth of 7 feet, can provide 10-12 acre-feet of irrigation water. For a crop that requires 4” of supplemental irrigation water, that 2-acre pond can cover 30 acres of productive land. Depending on your crop, that could nearly meet your need for the entire growing season. Even in regions where water is relatively plentiful, regular summer dry periods can damage crops during vital growth periods. With an irrigation pond, farmers can capture excess rainfall during winter and early season, saving it to use later in the year. Supplemental irrigation in those critical growth periods keeps crops stress-free and in full growth, substantially increasing both harvest yield and quality.
Another increasing concern for farmers across the country is the focus on agricultural pollution of surface waters, such as lakes and streams. This pollution occurs when irrigation tailwater and agricultural runoff flows into nearby surface waters. Runoff contains pollutants such as fertilizers, chemicals, and sediment, which can cause critical damage to aquatic ecosystems and help create toxic conditions even hundreds of miles downstream. Building an irrigation pond gives farmers the opportunity to capture tailwater and runoff, settle out unwanted sediment, and return nutrient-rich water to the fields. This not only prevents environmental damage but saves money. Pumping water from an irrigation pond takes less energy than pumping from groundwater. Additionally, using nutrient-rich water means that less fertilizer needs to be applied to the fields.
When you’re considering the pros and cons of constructing an irrigation pond, keep in mind the water demands of your crops and the acreage of irrigated land. Even extremely large farms can benefit from using irrigation ponds, but this strategy may have the largest impact on smaller operations supporting intensive crops. Orchards and vineyards may also enjoy important benefits, especially for mature fields whose water requirements have lessened.
In those cases, substantial acreage can potentially be entirely supported by moderately sized ponds, allowing farmers to focus available traditional sources on supporting younger, thirstier plantings.
With today’s increasing water scarcity and changing weather patterns, it’s a wise investment to ensure that you can consistently provide enough irrigation to not only keep fields planted and thriving, but to maximize your production. The ability to reliably produce a high-quality crop in hot, dry years conveys critical economic security in a time when many farms are failing.
