In this issue

May 2005, Vol 4. No. 2

Students Try on New “Hat”Water well screening program

provides efficient water forurban consumers and irrigation

2

CroPMan Programs AidGrowers

Computer models help growersirrigate crops efficiently

4

Communicating OutcomesCollaboration leads to water

conservation6

Live, Learn and ThriveRGBI Team Award presented at

NMSU ceremony7

OUTCOMESOUTCOMESOUTCOMESOUTCOMESOUTCOMESRio Grande Basin InitiativeRio Grande Basin InitiativeRio Grande Basin InitiativeRio Grande Basin InitiativeRio Grande Basin Initiative

Texas A&M University SystemAgriculture Program

•New Mexico State University

College of Agriculture and HomeEconomics

2

Students Try on New “Hat”Water well screening program provides efficient water for urban consumers and irrigation

Monty Dozier explains the process ofscreening water to students at the El Paso

Water Screening Camp.

byJenna Smith

Experts in the water science field are gettingyounger and younger. Nearly 200 high school andmiddle school students in El Paso Countyscreened water samples for private well owners inthe area.

Monty Dozier, water resources specialist withTexas Cooperative Extension, working with localCounty Extension Agents Ray Bader, OrlandoFlores and Jimmy Rodgers, conducted the privatewater well screenings as a component of the ElPaso Youth Water Leadership Institute at three ElPaso County schools—Clint High School, FabensMiddle School and Canutillo High School.

Dozier said students benefited from the hands-on aspect of the program and enjoyed learninghow to analyze water. The methods they usedwere similar to those used in the real world.

In addition, land owners received water qualityinformation for free.

El Paso County Extension agents solicitedteachers to participate in the screening program.Teachers then chose which students would takepart in the water sampling opportunity. Watersample kits and bags were distributed to countylandowners who wanted to have their water testedon a volunteer basis.

Clint High School students participating in thescreening began by attending a watershedprotection seminar at the school. Similar,condensed versions of the presentation were also

Dozier works with students to screen water.

“The program helps private well ownersmake informed decisions on how to usetheir water to reduce health impacts on

themselves, their families, livestock, petsand plants.”

“Students learn how their individual activitiesand those of others impact the quality of water

in the watershed where they live.”

presented at Fabens and Canutillo high schools.Dozier said the seminar introduced students tohow water behaves in the environment, potentialsources of contamination, water use trends andhow our everyday activities impact the worldaround us.

“The seminar was a lead-in to why we screen ortest water for various contaminants,” Dozier said.“Students learned how to make a determinationof water quality based on available data.”

During the two-day program, students weretrained in lab analysis and reporting using mobilelab techniques. More than 56 water sampleswere screened for the presence of contaminants,especially fecal coliform bacteria. Both animal andhuman sources contribute to fecal coliformcontamination.

Dozier said that many times, water qualityproblems associated with fecal coliform is a localissue around an individual well.

“The program helps private well owners makeinformed decisions on how to use their water to

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“Our main message that we try to drivehome for the students is that everyone lives

in a watershed, and everyone impacts thequality of water in that watershed.”

Students nitrate testing their water samples.

Students test their water for fecal coliform.

Photos courtesy of Monty Dozier

reduce health impacts on themselves, theirfamilies, livestock, pets and plants,” Dozier said.“Students learn how their individual activities andthose of others impact the quality of water in thewatershed where they live.”

The screening program is offered to countiesacross Texas as a means to educate private wellowners on knowing the water quality of their welland how to better manage and protect their wellfrom contamination.

The water well screening program began in 1999and has grown each year to include additionalcounties in various parts of the state.

“We have been asked back to several of the samecounties year after year,” Dozier said. “Our mainmessage that we try to drive home for the studentsis that everyone lives in a watershed, and everyoneimpacts the quality of water in that watershed.”

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byDanielle Supercinski

Crop simulation models have been developed andused by the research community to simulate theimpact that cropping practices have on yield andnatural resources—soil, water and air.

Many models are only designed to simulate thegrowth of specific crops, but the EPIC model iscapable of simulating a wide variety of crops andcropping practices. In recent years, two Windows-based decision aids, CroPMan and WinEPIC, weredeveloped by Drs. Tom Gerik, Wyatte Harman,Jimmy Williams and others at the BlacklandAgricultural Research and Extension Center. Theywanted to harness the capability of the EPIC modelso Texas growers and Cooperative Extension couldreadily identify the most effective cropping practicesthat conserve water for irrigation and improveproduction and profitability.

“CroPMan and WinEPIC are being field testedwith growers, Texas Cooperative Extension and

Texas Agricultural Experiment Station researchers inSouth Texas to identify cropping practices andmonitoring technologies that most effectivelyconserve water applied through irrigation withminimal adverse impact on crop yield andprofitability,” said Tom Gerik, Experiment StationResearcher at Blackland Agricultural Research andExtension Center in Temple.

“The project entails monitoring and assessment ofcurrent cropping practices on grower’s fields in theRio Grande Valley, Coastal Bend, Upper Gulf Coastand Texas Winter Garden (near Uvalde).”

CroPMan is used to assess “real-time” situations in the field—estimating crop and soil-water-fertilitystatus, and to project implications ofadditional irrigation and fertilization(i.e., timing and amount) on cropproductivity, Gerik said.

“CroPMan is designed to be used byExtension specialists and agriculturalconsultants,” he said. “Many ofEPIC’s features are hard-wired andstreamlined for Texas.”

CroPMan contains a feature knownas “Projected Run,” which enables theuser to assess the “real-time” status ofa crop by stopping the model on anydate of interest. The user can thenupdate the soil or crop status, or altersubsequent management operations.They can estimate crop yield using 30

CroPMan Programs Aid GrowersComputer models help growers irrigate crops efficiently

The screen image shows one of many CroPMan interfaces. Userscan choose which operation they would like to select, for how many

years, which month and even which day.

“CroPMan and WinEPIC identify croppingpractices and monitoring technologies that

most effectively conserve water appliedthrough irrigation.”

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to 100 location specific weather scenarios throughthe end of the growing season. This feature assistsgrowers with decisions on replanting, late planting,irrigation timing management and estimates ofyield. CroPMan provides graphical outputs ofnumerous growth characteristics, crop stresses,economical variables and pesticide fate variables.

“WinEPIC was designed to provide researcherswith all the features, power and flexibility as EPIC,”Gerik said.

WinEPIC is used to determine long-termimplications of new irrigation practices, such asconversion of furrow irrigation to sub-surface dripand/or low energy spray application (LESA)/lowenergy precision application (LEPA) sprinklers, andcomparisons of single cropping (monocrop) anddouble cropping systems.

“In WinEPIC the user can manipulate EPIC’scontrol files to simulate the full range of croppingscenarios,” he said. “The user can compare results ofhundreds of scenarios (runs) through the batchmode.”

WinEPIC does not contain the ‘Projected Runs’feature or graphical output of results found inCroPMan. However, all data are stored in Microsoft

Access tables where the user can view and exportthe data for further manipulation, and bothprograms use the Microsoft Access structure tooperate.

“The databases are constructed for the five distinctagricultural regions of Texas – West, South, Central,East and the Lower Rio Grande Valley,” Gerik said.

Each database contains tables with actual soil data,historical weather data, field operations, commoncrops and cropping systems, crop parameters,machinery/equipment, and numerous control typefiles. The field operation budgets includeinformation on the type and timing of culturalpractices such as tillage operations, irrigation,fertilization, planting date and harvest date.

“All operation budgets can be edited to producethe desired cropping practices of the user,” Geriksaid. “Daily weather files and weather stations canbe updated and created through a complementarysoftware utility named the Crop Weather Analyzer.”

CroPMan, WinEPIC and the Crop WeatherAnalyzer are available on CD-ROM or can bedownloaded from the CroPMan website athttp://cropman.brc.tamus.edu or by contactingTom Gerik at gerik@brc.tamus.edu.

Photos courtesy of Tom Gerik

“The databases are constructed for the fivedistinct agricultural regions in Texas - West,

South, Central, East and the LowerRio Grande Valley.”

“All operation budgets can be edited toproduce the desired cropping

practices of the user.”

CroPMan provides numerous graphical outputs,including total monthly precipitation for any given

year(s).

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Communicating OutcomesCollaboration leads to water conservation

ByDanielle Supercinski

Sunny skies and cool weather greeted projectparticipants as they arrived at the fourth annual RioGrande Basin Initiatives (RGBI) Conference, April12-14, 2005, in Alpine, Texas. It was a productiveweek that provided numerous discussions on localwater issues, agency reports, Task Group breakoutsessions and concurrent Task Group reports.

The RGBI is a federally funded effort involvingExperiment Station researchers and Extensioneducators from both Texas and New Mexico. Theproject partners with a number of other state andfederal agencies to enhance water conservationprograms. The purpose for the Initiative is todevelop and adapt water conservation practicesthrough research and then through Extensioneducation implement water saving practices.Primarily, the project focuses on irrigation efficiencyin both agricultural and urban areas.

RGBI project participants from Texas and NewMexico Agricultural Experiment Stations andCooperative Extension attended the meeting as wellas participants of new projects from the Texas State

University System (TSUS) and the University ofTexas (UT). This three-day event brought togetherproject administrators, state and federal agencypartners from various offices, irrigation districtmanagers, Extension agents and specialists, andExperiment Station researchers.

“A wealth of information is being developed, notonly by ourselves, but collaboratively with a numberof others involved,” said B. L. Harris, ProjectManager of the Rio Grande Basin Initiative andassociate director of the Texas Water ResourcesInstitute. “It’s our goal to minimize duplication andencourage collaboration.”

The purpose of this conference was to put all threeof the separately funded projects together to discussmethods and ways to collaborate and cooperate, andto prevent unnecessary duplication, Harris said. Theconference was also planned to bring the severalRGBI Task Groups together for annual reporting ofsignificant accomplishments and joint planning for

Conference participants are listening to the widevariety of speakers scheduled for each session.From here they can collaborate with other Task

Group members and formulate their future goals.Photo courtesy of Zhuping Sheng.

Some participants stayed for the 02 Ranch Field Touron Thursday, April 14. Here we are looking at

Terlingua Creek, the largest tributary to the RioGrande in Brewster County. Tour guide Bonnie

Warnock shows the slow regeneration of the floodplain after the Terlingua Creek dam failed.

Photo courtesy of Charlie Hart.

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future efforts. Peer and merit reviews werefacilitated for on-going activities and participantswere able to discuss partnership opportunitieswith federal and state agencies for both Texas andNew Mexico.

“Obviously one of the principal themes over thepast few days and life of the project has beencollaboration, collaboration, collaboration,” saidCraig Runyan, Water Quality and RGBI ProgramCoordinator for New Mexico State University(NMSU), during closing remarks. “It’s meaningfuland it’s helped a lot. It’s certainly helped our waterprogram at NMSU. Collaboration isn’t somethingnew to us. Institutionally, professionally, career-wise, that’s what we do – we collaborate.”

Runyan said the collaboration between theuniversities and the interaction with thoseuniversities, stakeholders and other agencies hasgiven us an institutional capacity to keep thisproject relevant.

The RGBI is in its fourth year and continues togo forward, collaborating and working towardsthe common goal – to conserve the water in theRio Grande Basin. Without the collaboration of allof the groups involved, this would not be possible,but together it can be done.

For conference presentations and reports, go to:http://riogrande.tamu.edu.

Rio Grande Basin Initiative (RGBI) participantsreceived the Team Award from New Mexico StateUniversity (NMSU) on April 21, 2005, during theNMSU Live, Learn and Thrive awards convocation.

New Mexico efforts are led by Craig Runyan,RGBI Program coordinator for NMSU, andassisted by Leeann DeMouche. Runyan,DeMouche and almost 40 other members of theRGBI received this award for demonstrating thepower of team action in achieving significantwater savings in agricultural irrigation and inaddressing community water needs. In addition,other partners who also received this award were:B. L. Harris, Sterling Grogan, Gary Esslinger andSubas Shah.

The RGBI is a joint project involving NMSU andTexas A&M University Systems CooperativeExtension and Agricultural Experiment Stations. Itis a federally funded effort through theCooperative Research, Education and ExtensionServices. The project partners with a number ofother state and federal agencies, including the

Live, Learn and ThriveRGBI Team Award presented at NMSU ceremony

ByDanielle Supercinski

(From left to right) Leeann DeMouche, Bill Harris,Craig Runyan and Gary Esslinger were all present toreceive the RGBI Team Award for their collaborative

efforts in water conservation and efficiency.

Elephant Butte Irrigation District and the MiddleRio Grande Conservancy District in New Mexico.Once again collaboration has paid off.

Rio Grande Basin Initiative OutcomesMay 2005, Vol 4. No. 2

B.L. Harris, Project Director,Associate Director,

Texas Water Resources Institute

Craig Runyan, Project Director,Water Quality Coordinator,

New Mexico State University Plant Sciences

Danielle Supercinski, Editor

Send comments or subscription requests toOutcomes Editor, Texas Water Resources Institute,2118 TAMU, College Station, Texas, 77843-2118.

Call (979) 845-1851 or e-mailriogrande@tamu.edu.

http://riogrande.tamu.edu

Increasing Irrigation Efficiency in the Rio Grande Basinthrough Research and Education

Through Extension and research efforts, the Texas A&MUniversity System Agriculture Program and the New MexicoState University College of Agriculture and Home Economicsare implementing strategies for meeting present and futurewater demand in the Rio Grande Basin. These strategies ex-pand the efficient use of available water and create new watersupplies. This federally funded initiative is administered by theTexas Water Resources Institute and the New Mexico StateUniversity Water Task Force with funds from the CooperativeState Research, Education, and Extension Service.

This material is based upon work supported by the Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service,U.S. Department of Agriculture under Agreement No. 2003-34461-13278 and Agreement No. 2001-45049-01149.

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