Russ Pankonin | Johnson Publications
The URNRD will install three data weather stations throughout the district like this one located on a farm northwest of Imperial. Each of the 15 groundwater monitoring wells in the district, such as the one shown here, will be equipped with rain buckets to provide real-time rain data.
NRD installing real-time rain data equipment
By Russ Pankonin
Imperial Republican
Irrigators in the three counties of the Upper Republican Natural Resources
District (NRD) will have access to real-time rainfall data throughout the district as early as next week.
The rainfall data can be used to help farmers manage the amount of water they apply as well as the timing of that irrigation.
The NRD oversees the maintenance and operation of 15 groundwater monitoring wells spread throughout the district.
As part of the monitoring, the NRD has installed real-time data collection of groundwater levels in 10 of those wells. The five other wells will also be equipped in the near future.
To complement that data, the NRD has installed solar-powered rain buckets at nine of the 15 wells sites. Eventually all of the well sites will be equipped with the rain buckets.
In addition, three full-blown, solar-powered real-time weather collection stations will be installed in the district. The exact location of these three units has not been determined.
The data from these stations will be key in calculating evaporative transpiration (ET) to determine how much water corn plants are consuming on a daily basis.