Tool Information & User Manuals
Cotton Water Use Estimator
This table is provided as an approximate estimate for water use for cotton and is based on data from the Plainview weather station from the West Texas Mesonet with a planting date of May 5.
Numbers provided are the same numbers you would obtain from the ET tool on the personalized Irrigation Scheduler with 100% ET and Plainview weather station selected.
Please use the Irrigation Scheduler if you would like to personalize and more closely follow conditions near your farm by selection from over 110 weather stations in the West Texas Mesonet and customize a variety of settings to aid in your irrigation scheduling.
Irrigation Scheduler
Intended as an aid to producers in determining a more refined irrigation schedule. This program utilizes producer selected weather information (selectable from over 110 weather stations from the Northen High Plains to the Low Rolling Plains and far West Texas and eastern New Mexico) collected by the Texas Tech Mesonet along with specific producer input information to automatically calculate and update the soil water balance for a specific crop based on information provided by the user. Some key inputs include: crop type, planting date, site rainfall, irrigation, and other environmental and producer information. This provides a checkbook-style water balance register with which a producer can determine when and how much water to apply for an irrigation event based on tracking of the soil water balance available to the crop at any given growth stage during the growing season. The TAWC Solutions Irrigation Scheduler is designed to help producers make the most out of their irrigation regime while being conscious of this precious natural resource.
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Resource Allocation Analyzer
An economic-based decision aid which utilizes economic variables provided by an individual agricultural producer to estimate options for cropping systems which maximize per acre profits, whether at field or farm level. Utilizing information such as expected commodity prices, water availability, and enterprise options, irrigated agricultural producers can view cropping options which maximize their net returns per acre while accounting for irrigation demands and revenue potential. This user friendly aid is designed to provide the agronomic planning options to maintain profitability and sustainability in irrigated row crop agriculture.
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Simple Heat Unit Calculator
Developed to aid a producer in determining the total heat unit accumulation for both corn and cotton within specific regions including Amarillo, Plainview, Lubbock and Lamesa. Input consists of the desired date range for each crop to total the heat units for that time period and crop. Data is manually entered on Mondays of each week during the growing season. This calculator currently does not use a cap in temperature for calculating heat units.
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West Texas Mesonet Agro-Climate Monitor
Developed by USDA-ARS in Lubbock, TX to aid a producer in various climate related crop management decisions. Weather data is collected from the West Texas Mesonet and currently encompasses 35 stations with various climate variables available. The Mesonet Precipitation tab, includes cummulative, current, and by-station precipitation. The Mesonet Temperature tab includes soil temperature, daily min/max temperatures, cummulative hard freeze hours, and first freeze dates averaged from the 5 closest weather stations to the user selected location on the map. This tab also includes Cummulative Growing Degree Days. Help may be obtained by clicking the ? within the application itself.
Basic Irrigation Calculator
and
Contiguous Acre Calculator
The Basic Irrigation Calculator aids producers in determining the length of time required to apply a specific amount of water by calculating the number of minutes, hours and days required to pump based on the well GPM and the number of acres being applied..
The Contiguous Acre Calculator was developed to aid a producer in determining the total allowable amount of irrigation water in inches (based on total contiguous acres available and the total irrigated acres within this area) that could be pumped as established by water policy from the High Plains Underground Water Conservation District as well as aid in distributing the allowable water across irrigation systems within the contiguous acre area.
[pdf-embedder url="http://18.233.155.11/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/TAWC_Irrigation_Calculators_Graphical.pdf"]
