They rise out of the corn like metallic interlopers — giant insects that lumber along at less than 0.017 mph or so.
Since the drought of 2012, they have become more commonplace as farming operations have learned that the upfront costs of an irrigation system are worth it compared to the thought of acreage that won’t produce for lack of rain.
Northeastern Indiana has seen its irrigated farmland acreage rise 26.1 percent from 2007 to 2012, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture figures.
“There were a lot of irrigation units that went up,” said Doug Keenan, Noble County’s Purdue Extension director. “You’d drive down a country road, and there they were.”
Irrigation system retailer Jeff Leu, of J.L. Electric in Howe, said a typical irrigation pivot is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,320 feet in length, capable of pumping between 900 and 1,000 gallons a minute of water.
Leu said such a unit could provide an inch of water over a 134- to 140-acre field in a span of four days. At 900 gallons per minute, that translates into roughly 5.184 million gallons of water. It takes approximately four days for a single pivot that is 1,320 feet long to make an entire circle of a field.
Northeastern Indiana had 138,819 acres of farmland that were irrigated in 2012, up from 110,055 such acres in 2007.
LaGrange County has nearly half the four-county area’s total with 66,364 irrigated acres in 2012, the USDA reported, up slightly from 2007’s total of 62,990 acres.
Noble County saw the highest increase in acreage during that time span, moving from 24,689 irrigated acres of farmland to 40,320, a jump of 67 percent.
Keenan said along with drought-compensation factors, some Noble County farmers have begun growing potatoes, a crop that requires a lot of moisture.
Steuben County saw the highest increase as a percentage as it went from 11,663 irrigated acres in 2007 to 21,135 acres in 2012, a boost of 81.2 percent.
DeKalb County’s irrigated acreage grew from 10,753 to 11,000.
DeKalb County Extension director Elysia Rodgers said DeKalb farmers don’t need to irrigate as much as those in neighboring counties because of soil types. Most of DeKalb’s farm land is clay, while Steuben, Noble and LaGrange counties all have significant portions of sandy soil.
“Because of that sand, the ground seems to dry out more quickly,” Rodgers said.
If the regionwide trend continues, there will be more and more metallic interlopers in area corn fields, requiring more and more water. A new report by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce predicts water use in Noble and LaGrange counties could triple by 2050, chiefly due to irrigation.
LaGrange County ranks first in predicted growth of water use by mid-century. The report says LaGrange County now uses 10.3 billion gallons per year, with an expected growth of 23 billion gallons. The study says irrigation now makes up 82 percent of the county’s water use.
Noble County ranks sixth in expected growth. Now using 5 billion gallons per year, the county is forecast to add 10 billion gallons per year by 2050. Irrigation now makes up 72 percent of the county’s water use.
The good news is that the area has plenty of water available for drilling. Leu said he would put this area’s supply against any in the country.
“There’s no better place to get water,” Leu said. “We are very blessed. We don’t have water problems.”
The drought of 2012 did tax some wells, he said, but only near the end of the long, hot, rainless summer.
“We had guys pumping for eight weeks straight,” Leu said.
By the next year, the wells had replenished themselves, with some producing even better than they had before.
Crop yields suffered in 2012 from the drought. DeKalb, LaGrange and Noble counties averaged corn yields of 97.8 bushels per acre in 2012. In 2013 when the weather was more wet and mild, those three counties averaged a combined 162 bushels per acre. Even at today’s $3.50-per-bushel corn prices, that translates into a difference of $100,000 in income for a 500-acre corn crop.
More and more farmers are mitigating the risk of losing yields to low rain levels by irrigating.
Leu said farmers who irrigated their corn crops in 2012 saw a boost of between 50-150 bushels per acre. In 2013, the yield difference ranged from 30 to 50 more bushels per acre of corn for those farmers who irrigated their land.
Leu said the upfront cost of investing in an irrigation system is the biggest drawback for many farmers. Irrigating a parcel of land can cost upward of $2,000 per acre or more.
The upfront costs are offset by the gains in yields, Leu said, as well as labor savings with the advent of new technology.
A portion of the Zimmatic line of irrigation units that Leu sells comes with controls that can be manipulated by a cellphone. Systems that aren’t controlled in such a way require someone go the pivot and manually change settings.
With the new systems, a farmer can start or stop a unit or even adjust the pressure or speed at which water is dispersed by a cellphone or tablet computer. For larger farm operations with multiple pivots, this can cut the work hours required considerably, Leu said, because a single person can make all of the adjustments with just the touch of a few buttons on his or her phone.
Leu gets notified immediately by a text message if one of the units he maintains has a problem, and he often can identify a problem by looking at a computer screen in his office or on his phone.