Deployments continue to heat up in both the Central and Coastal Valleys of California, with growers and co-ops alike seeing the increasing need for accurate ag water planning and water management. One client recently noted, “I look at SWIIM as an insurance policy on my water allocations. The farm management tools related to water are unlike anything that currently exists for growers that are worried about future water availability.
One of the things that makes SWIIM different is that we measure all sources of on-flow – groundwater, surface and precipitation related to individual fields and blocks. We also manage reservoir deliveries and calculate consumption each day for each individual source and field.
We continue to add to our own climatic network (like the station you see below), in addition to publically-available data. Remote sensed data (satellite and aerial) is used to calibrate these sources.
The connection of application versus consumption on a daily basis, and the related costs associated with each source should be woven into a report that is easy to understand. This provides actionable data the client case use throughout the season, opposes to “Monday morning quarterbacking it” after the season is ended.