Evaluation of Mechanized Sprinkler Equipment

The growth of sprinkler irrigation has been steady since the end of World War II. The 1949 United States Census showed 639,987 acres sprinkled out of 25,787,455 total irrigated acres. 1968 estimates show 6,750,000 acres sprinkled and 45,000,000 acres irrigated. The sprinkled acreage of the United States is equivalent to all the irrigated acreage in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. Oregon ranks sixth among the fifty states in the acreage irrigated by agricultural sprinkler systems. Only California, Texas, Florida, Idaho and Washington have more sprinkled agricultural acreage than the 450,000 acres sprinkler irrigated in Oregon. The early sprinkler systems were handmove, portable lateral types that required a minimum of capital and maximum of labor for irrigation. The availability and reliability of present day farm labor has caused the Oregon farmer to look to mechanization as a method of reducing irrigation labor requirements. The sprinkler industry responded to this demand by introducing a large number of mechanical move systems. This paper presents a brief description of the various mechanized sprinkler systems and a summary of an evaluation of the field performance of some of the systems. Tests were made on systems operating in the Boise and Twin Falls, Idaho areas