By Bonnie Coblentz
MSU Extension Service
Knowing when and how to irrigate are questions every grower with the ability to water their farmland on demand face each year.
Irrigation costs per acre are among the highest inputs growers face. In a state with the capacity both for extreme drought and high temperatures as well as prolonged rainy periods, the question of whether or not to irrigate is very important.
Scientists with the Mississippi State University Extension Service and the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station annually dedicate significant resources addressing these questions as they pertain to the state’s primary row crops.
In Mississippi, about 50% of the state’s agricultural farmland is irrigated. The majority uses furrow irrigation, where water is released from flexible pipe laid along a field edge and allowed to run down furrows to the low end of the field. The remaining irrigated acres primarily use overhead irrigation, where water is sprayed from an arm of sprinklers that move across a field.