It’s harvest time once again; the time of the year when your hard work and endless hours on the farm are about to pay off. During this time, crop residue management needs to be considered due to the Chinook winds in Southern Alberta that will blow the residues into the canals.
SMRID is requesting all irrigators to manage their crop residues responsibly in order to mitigate the negative impacts of the crop debris ending up in our canals. If not managed properly, crop residues in our canals can result in the following;
Trash racks and screeners get overrun with the residues and when this happens, water cannot be efficiently delivered to farmers downstream and a lot of man-hours and equipment is spent on cleaning up clogged screeners. In addition, screeners can break down resulting in costly repairs needed to have them working again.
Crop residues not captured by the trash racks and screeners can end up plugging nozzles on irrigation systems, inline filters, end guns, and pump impellers resulting in shutting systems down or inadvertently impacting the efficiency of an irrigation system.
Please do your part, manage your crop residue responsibly