High Plains Journal:
WATER RIGHT - College's Program Creates Opportunity to Preserve Aquifer
By Dave Bergmeier
*This portion of this article was taken directly from the High Plains Journal - April 27, 2020 Edition.
Open-minded, common sense individuals matched with hands-on technology are making a difference in the drive to conserve water in the Ogallala Aquifer.
Those individuals are thriving at Northwest Kansas Technical College, Goodland, Kansas, an institution that has a history of regularly raising bumper crops of entrepreneurs. The latest addition is irrigation management. In 2016, NWKTC's Precision Ag program launched its Water Technology Farms project to promote the adaption of various irrigation management technologies to help producers in that region, said Weston McCary, director of Precision Agriculture and UAS Technologies at the college.
Students welcome the opportunity to learn how to use new technologies to preserve groundwater, McCary said, adding that is essential for agriculture and agricultural-related businesses in the High Plains.
John Gower, Phillipsburg, Kansas, grew up on a farm in eastern Phillips County near Agra. He plans to be the next generation of that operations, and as a budding entrepreneur he is bullish because he has been able to work in a program that can tap his hands-on instincts. That hs included how he can incorporate technology into improving a farm's efficiency.
Irrigation application has always intrigued him. As an eighth-grader he had the opportunity to work with Josh McClain, an irrigator based in Almena, Kansas. Gower remembers how important it was to be precise on water application.
Technology tools pay dividends, Gower said, providing ways to help producers in ways that were not possible even a few years ago.
Read the remainder of this article here.
*This portion of this article was taken directly from the High Plains Journal - April 27, 2020 Edition.
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