Sariah Israelsen: Welcome back to USU Extension Educational Highlight. I'm Sariah Israelsen and joining me today is Matt Yost, associate professor and agroclimate extension specialists. Welcome, Matt.
Matt Yost: Thanks. Glad to be here.
Sariah Israelsen: So USU has teamed up with Southern Utah University to explore different strategies for maximizing water efficiency and things like that. So I would love it, if you could just give me an overview of this team up, and exactly what this research is going to go through and cover.
Matt Yost: Sure, this is an exciting project, what we're doing is trying to study ways to better utilize or optimize water for crop or food production.
And we're taking a multifaceted approach in this study, where we're looking at various methods of irrigation, and also deficit, irrigation or irrigation strategy that might be most ideal. And then we're also looking at the crop height and the crop genetics and how we manage the soil, if we till or if we add cover crops, or other things to help influence water use.
So we've kind of termed this study a combination of conservation or stacking of conservation practices. And so we're trying to learn how these combinations of water management, crop management and soil management, which combinations might be most ideal might result in the most efficient use of limited water.
Sariah Israelsen: So I know this is not the first time that USU has been trying to figure out different conservation techniques. And I would just want to know what the benefits of teaming up with Southern Utah University are going to be?
Matt Yost: Yes, so good question. Many of the things that we're studying have been studied before, most of it has been in isolation, it's been looking at one thing, we change the irrigation type, and what does that impact or we change the crop type? And what does that impact the advantage?
The exciting thing about this project is that we're trying to bring many of those things together in a way they haven't been before. And also to look at them in the long term.
So this project started in 2019, we're going on roughly the fourth or fifth year of this work. And we intend to do it for as long as we can, another five or 10 years to look at long term impact of these combinations of conservation.
I should mention that we're also at a similar study in Vernal and also in Logan. So it's a part of a larger statewide study. But what's exciting about doing this work in Cedar City and with SUU is that it's an area of the state that is experiencing extreme challenges when it comes to water.
Most of that area relies on groundwater extractions for irrigation, and that groundwater has been over allocated. And so they're expecting, and there's actually been, mandated some cuts in that water use in the next few decades. And so there's high concerns in that area about how to address those cuts, how to use less water, and still maintain agriculture and other industries in the area that depends so much on that water.
Sariah Israelsen: So through the time that this research has been going on, have any breakthroughs or any discoveries happen that have I guess, peaked interest or provided a little bit of hope concerning the water conservation that you're trying to achieve?
Matt Yost: Yes, first, I should say there's we found a lot of things that aren't working very well, which is good to know, it helps us know, things that probably aren't a part of the solution.
There is one thing that we have learned is that some new sprinkler technologies that apply irrigation closer to the ground and call them a low elevation sprinkler are resulting in water savings. And they're not large, it's really hard to significantly reduce water use in agriculture without losing production.
But these technologies are showing that we can be can reduce in some some cases about 10% to 15% improvement in water use or water savings. And that's having a large impact. There are 1,000s of acres in the area that are converting to these new sprinkler types and receiving support from many growers, many farmers and the state and state programs. And so it's making a difference.
Sariah Israelsen: That was Matt Yost, associate professor and agroclimate extension specialist. Thank you so much, Matt, for meeting with me today and talking to me about this.
Matt Yost: You're welcome. Thank you, Sariah.
Sariah Israelsen: And thank you all for listening and make sure that you join me again next week.
