Irrigation Tools
System Audits
Curious how your irrigation system is performing? You can calculate the efficiency of your system using any of the following methods:
- Download TWDB’s spreadsheet for evaluating pivot irrigation system efficiency using a catch can audit.
- Purchase a portable flow meter through TWDB’s Agricultural Water Conservation Grants. Funding is available to eligible political subdivisions through our annual competitive grant program.
- Utilize one of the online tools listed below.
Scheduling Tools
TAWC Solutions provides a simple web-based management decision tool and an ET (evapotranspiration) tool that can aid in improved management decisions in the application of irrigation water. The tools on this site are intended to help secure the future of agriculture in the Texas High Plains. The TAWC Water Guide is also available for resource management to increase profits and make every drop count.
TexMesonet, is creating a unified virtual network of high quality data to support flood monitoring and flood forecasting, monitoring and responding to drought and wildfires, and providing information to use water more efficiently for urban and rural irrigation. Information collected includes temperature, precipitation, wind speed, relative humidity, barometric pressure, solar radiation, soil moisture, soil temperature, and evapotranspiration.
The Texas ET Network and website provide real-time evapotranspiration data from a weather station network with tools to allow users to determine irrigation requirements in agricultural and urban landscapes. Weather information, irrigation watering recommendations, and useful tips for irrigation scheduling are provided.
The Irrigation Association offers tools and calculators along with other resources for irrigation professionals. The site also provides information on finding evapotranspiration data for every state in the U.S.
Colorado State University's Agricultural Water Conservation Clearinghouse boasts an exhaustive collection of schedulers, calculators, and assessment tools.
Purdue University's IRRIS Scheduler estimates irrigation water needs for corn, soybean, established alfalfa, dry bean, potato and other crops, as well as soil nitrogen losses and availability. It was developed by the Purdue University Department of Agronomy as an easy-to-use tool to assist crop producers with irrigation scheduling and nitrogen application decisions.
The West Texas Mesonet system provides real-time weather data from more than 100 sites in West Texas, eastern New Mexico, and southwest Colorado. Information is available for current conditions and those of the past 24 hours. Available data includes temperature, windspeed, dewpoint, humidity, and soil temperature. Access the data online or via iOS apps.
The Ogallala Water Coordinated Agriculture Project is a multi-disciplinary collaborative effort funded by USDA-NIFA, and focused on developing and sharing practical, science-supported information relevant to best management practices for optimizing water use across the Ogallala region.
Water My Yard shows how a healthy landscape actually requires less water than you may think! The site provides irrigation recommendations for warm season turf grasses such as St. Augustine, Bermuda, Zoysia, and Buffalo. At this time data are only available for these cities: Allen, Bryan, College Station, Farmersville, Forney, Frisco, Garland, Irving, McKinney, Mesquite, Plano, Princeton, Richardson, Rockwall, Royse City, and Wylie.