Tour Focuses on Best Practices in Agriculture Irrigation to Help Tennessee Producers Increase Yields
MILAN, Tenn. – Rainfall, or lack thereof, has been the main topic of conversation among Tennessee farmers. As the dry summer continues, the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture is eager to give producers valuable water management information at the 2022 Milan No-Till Field Day to help mitigate the risk of crop loss.
Irregular rainfall patterns have long characterized the crop growing conditions across Tennessee and the Mid-South. Farmers can offset the challenges of drought, heat and climate change, however, with water management techniques.
“When it comes to water management, our farmers have few options to mitigate drought stress on dryland acreages and must cope by either adopting cultural practices such as irrigation or by selecting drought-tolerant varieties”, says Avat Shekoofa, associate professor in the UT Department of Plant Sciences. “Farmers with irrigation have to manage water as an input and find out how to maximize returns when the rains are not timely or adequate.”
About one-third of Tennessee farmers have at least one irrigated field, according to a recent UT survey of farmers in 30 counties. Shekoofa and the other presenters hope that the Water Management tour will help those farmers identify what to do and what not to do when it comes to row crop irrigation and water management.
“I’m extremely excited to return to an in-person Milan No-Till Field Day”, Shekoofa adds. “I cannot wait to experience all the excitement that I had during my very first Milan No-Till in 2018 when I was a brand-new assistant professor with the Department of Plant Sciences.”
The Water Management tour (Tour G) takes place at 9 a.m. CDT in Tent 2 on the grounds of the UT AgResearch and Education Center at Milan. There are three presentations in the tour.
Tour G: Water Management
- Results of Recent Irrigation Trials
- Avat Shekoofa, associate professor, UT Department of Plant Sciences
- Applying Irrigation Recommendations On-Farm
- Brian Leib, professor, UT Department of Biosystems Engineering and Soil Science
- Status and Monitoring of West Tennessee Aquifers
- Mary Yeager, postdoctoral fellow, Center for Applied Earth Science and Engineering Research, University of Memphis
The 2022 Milan No-Till Field Day will be Thursday, July 28, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. CDT at the UT AgResearch and Education Center at Milan, located at 3A Ledbetter Gate Road, Milan, Tennessee. Registration begins at 7 a.m. and is also available online at milannotill.tennessee.edu. Tours will also be available online following the field day event. Note that Tour P, no-till basics, and Tour Q, natural resource management, will only be available online.
Through its land-grant mission of research, teaching and extension, the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture touches lives and provides Real. Life. Solutions. utia.tennessee.edu.