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Texas Alliance for Water Conservation

Demonstration Project : (Funded by the State of Texas, Senate Bill 1053 sponsored by Senator Robert Duncan, through the Texas Water Development Board)  The Demonstration Project, An Integrated Approach to Water Conservation for Agriculture in the Texas Southern High Plains, is overseen by the Water Conservation Demonstration Producer Board composed of Eddie Teeter, Chair, Boyd Jackson, Co-Chair, Brian Teeple, Secretary, Keith Phillips, John Paul Schacht, Glen Schur, Mark Beedy, Jeff Don Terrell, and Jody Foster. These individuals are producers in Hale and Floyd Counties.  The producer Board of Directors was instrumental in identification of potential sites and oversees this entire project. Final approval of the 26 sites rested with this board and each aspect of the project is subject to approval by this board. Information collected is available for use within the proposed research as described below.            

Twenty-six sites were selected in Hale and Floyd Counties (approximately 50 miles north of the research site) to represent a range of monoculture crops (cotton, sorghum, corn, and forage seed production), crop rotations, livestock (beef cow-calf and stocker cattle) and integrated crop/livestock systems.  Each site represents an entire system where input/output conditions and total water use can be described fully and contributes to the range of systems described above. Irrigated sites include surface, subsurface drip, and flood irrigation. Water meters have been installed at each irrigation discharge point for each system site to measure total water pumped from the aquifer and water used by each system component. Precipitation and temperature are measured at each site. Detailed descriptions of soil properties, geographical location, cropping histories, management and inputs of water and water application strategies (both timing and amount of water applied), fertilizers, chemicals, labor, equipment, seed, and other inputs, and total productivity of crops and/or livestock products (gain per acre) are being collected. Row crop and forage productivity are measured by direct estimates of crop yield and by satellite imagery technology. Productivity and profitability per unit of water invested are determined. A full-time person with Texas Cooperative Extension’s FARM Assistance program is developing detailed records of production costs, returns, and financial performance of observed technologies with cooperating producers.   FARM Assistance is a simulation model that projects a specific farms financial performance given alternative management scenarios relative to a baseline. Thus, a cooperating producer will be able to evaluate potential impacts of adopting alternative water conserving technologies and management practices.  The FARM Assistance financial comparisons will be used to measure the value of specific technologies, and gage the incentive or disincentive for other producers to adopt the water conserving practice.  In certain cases, the long term financial impact associated with a water conserving practice may be extended to estimate the value of water, or a lack of water, to an individual producer.

                                                                                                                                                Angela Beikmann, TAWC  Secretary

Rick Kellison (right), TAWC Project Director discussing project with

Chief Bruce Knight, USDA-NRCS, Washington D. C. at a site tour in 2005.

The Texas Alliance for Water Conservation and the Texas Tech University Forage/Livestock Systems Research Program would like to extend our deep appreciation to City Bank Texas for their generous donation of a vehicle for the TAWC project.  Their commitment and dedication to water conservation and the continued viability of agriculture and the local economy is recognized and appreciated. 

Thank You!

Contacts:

Rick Kellison, TAWC Project Director

rick.kellison@ttu.edu

Angela Beikmann, TAWC Secretary

angela.beikmann@ttu.edu

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TAWC General Information Links:

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Last modified: 10/17/06