Irrigation automation means no more cutting corners on farm fields

COLFAX, N.D. — For farmers who irrigate, there’s no need to go around in circles or cut corners anymore.

The 360 Yield Center 360 Rain is a new style of irrigation, a machine that slowly creeps through a cornfield like a tank, spraying water and fertilizer directly on rows.

Jay Myers is a 360 Yield Center dealer with his business, AgroValley Solutions, near Colfax, North Dakota, that he calls "an autonomous irrigation machine.”

After years of development, the 360 Yield Center 360 Rain is now in use at a few farms around the country, including land farmed by Myers’ son. The field is about 13 miles west of Colfax in southeast North Dakota.

“So it can go just about anywhere in the field and it can do the headlands and we can pick a path and put more water on one area,” Myers said.

They are comparing the performance of the Rain against the traditional irrigation pivot that they have used in years past. It is set up in a neighboring field.

Some differences between new and the old:

Banding: Unlike a pivot, which sprays water overhead, the Rain has hoses that hang down and “bands” the water, or sprays it directly onto the rows. “So we're looking at the efficiency of all this with the water and nitrogen being right there at the row base,” Myers said.

Reach: The Rain is capable of reaching into field corners, moving through tree lines and irrigating smaller, odd-shaped chunks of land. (Because they were unable to update the water permit in time, the corners of the Myers’ demonstration field still has the rounded corners.)

Ruts: The Rain is designed to not have its wheels driving through wet areas it has just irrigated. It does this by only spraying from six of its 12 nozzles at a time and changing directions. The center nozzles spray when they are following a center wheel; the outer nozzles spray when they are following the outer wheel. Myers said the wheels of his center pivot often are driving over wet ground, leaving ruts.

Well use: While his field would usually use four wells to run two center pivots, he only uses one for the Rain. To get the water from the well to the plants is a hose that uncoils and recoils, with what Myers calls a “backbone” along the center of the field.

“So a lot of times when you explain it to somebody, they keep thinking that it's dragging hose, through the field, but it's not dragging hose,” Myers said. “It's got a reel on board that's got 3,000 feet of 3-inch hose and it's laying hose down as it moves along. And then it backs up down the same path, and then picks the hose back up. And when it gets to the center of the field, that's kind of the backbone where it does its turning, then it turns and goes down the next set of rows.”

Power: A pivot runs on electricity. The Rain is powered by a three-cylinder Isuzu diesel engine, with a 300 gallon tank. “It's enough for a month or more. So we've only filled it up once here now and we’ve been running two weeks and I think we're at just around 50% on the fuel tank,” Myers said. They will be evaluating the fuel usage for the Rain as compared to the electric bill for the pivot.

Myers said next year’s price for a 360 Rain should be comparable to a center irrigation pivot: around $200,000.

One of the keys to getting the system set up was mapping where the planter was going when planting the corn in the spring.

There is a base station at the field with a GPS signal, creating the map for the Rain to use later in the season.

“It knows exactly where the rows are, and it's just driving, right where the rows are, so the base station is the key for it to know where to go,” Myers said.

Myers can follow the progress of the Rain and control it on his phone. He also can look at images from cameras mounted on the Rain.

He said the mapping and technology should only get better.

They're improving the app, too, so in the future we'll probably be able to do a map with variable rates in different areas,” Myers said.

It might even be able spray fields to control diseases and pests.

“So it's going to be a pretty awesome machine here when it's all perfected,” he said.

360 Yield Center and AgroValley Solutions are planning a field day for Aug. 10 so folks can see the Rain up close. There will be a session from 10 a.m. to noon, a lunch will be provided, and a repeat of the morning session begins at 1 p.m.

The field is on the north side of North Dakota Highway 27, 3 miles west of North Dakota Highway 18. For more information, see www.agrovalley.net .