Saving water, saving money

With droughts stretching on in much of the nation, water management has become a primary concern for most operations. One of the ways that growers can reduce their water usage and become more efficient is through the installation of an irrigation boom. But is a boom system right for your operation?

The Greenhouse Management team spoke with Walter Drummond, the sales manager for Cherry Creek Systems, a manufacturer of greenhouse automation products, about the ins and outs of an irrigation boom system.
 

Greenhouse Management: What are the advantages of an irrigation boom system?

Walter Drummond: The immediate thought, that comes to mind, is that you reduce the need to hand water; which is the old-school way of irrigating. Installing a boom will also eliminate the need for more antiquated technologies like sprinklers. Booms give you a lot of control over when and how you water your crops. It also allows you to fertigate and irrigate, fertigation being when you apply certain chemicals or treatments or fertilizers to the plants through the boom itself.
 

GM: Do you recommend a particular set up or structure for boom installation?

WD: We don’t recommend a particular structure. We can create a solution for most situations, sans maybe space. Typically, the most common boom we sell is to a stick-built, gutter-connected greenhouse with overhead trusses or posts that live on the side of the walls that we can attach our boom system to ride along. In cases where we have outdoor growers, we make Ground Runner booms or Sky-rail booms. In those situations, we actually build a support structure from whatever for the system to travel along.
 

GM: What is the average lifetime of an irrigation boom system?

WD: I’m the sales manager and I’ve jokingly asked the engineers to build in obsolescence because sometimes I go out and see 30 year old systems (laughs).

We rely on new builds for business and luckily the industry has thrived. Greenhouses often go the way of the economy. If people are doing well, they want pretty plants in front of their homes; that’s good for me and it’s good for greenhouses. If the economy is in a slump, plants are a commodity. They’re not a necessity. And if fewer people are buying plants, then growers don’t need to grow them, and if they’re not growing they need less equipment.
 

GM: What are some of the common repairs that systems need?

WD: There are, by virtue of the fact that these are moving machines, what I call soft parts: polymer parts or plastic parts or wiring, which are the most common repairs. The parts of the boom that are moving, anything that’s caught in the moving function, will wear faster than other parts. The polymer or plastic parts tend to be the most common repair.
 

GM: How does an irrigation boom change a grower’s needs?

WD: Before, you might have a guy walking around with a hose that had an extension on it, hand watering each individual plant. Now we have systems like the Echo which is an overhead basket system that allows you to have more growing space. And it pretty much takes care of itself; set the program and it runs on its own. Now, you have one grower managing all these overhead baskets. I sell them in lots of sometimes 30 or 40 systems at a time and each system could handle 800 plants. Then we’re talking 32,000 plants that are managed by one person versus a team of, say, 10 or 15 people working eight hours a day. It can really reduce your personnel needs and the demands on your staff.
 

GM: How can booms help with water management?

WD: In the past, we’ve used the booms to broadcast spray water over plants, which still conserves water versus a sprinkler system. You can lose a percentage of your water via dissipation in the air when you use sprinklers. Our booms are closer to the medium and they spray directly down to the plant. You don’t lose water in the air and it’s directed towards the plant. We’ve advanced the technology even more now. Depending on the application we can water from pot-to-pot. We have, what we call, a lock line that waters directly into the pot the precise amount of water that you want in that plant. And it goes one-by-one, which almost eliminates any waste.

Now, it’s not always applicable, you can’t always use it. But when applicable, you save a considerable amount of water just because you have greater control over what’s happening at the plant.
 

GM: How do you seem your industry evolving?

WD: Our business is a niche business. We’re dealing with plants and plants need water. You don’t have a lot of fluctuation. We’ve improved the technology behind the booms to make ease of use and scheduling better. But what’s happening at the boom and with the plant is the same thing that’s been happening for 100 years. More and more people are trying to cut costs because you have to save money to make money, in terms of production. So, in most cases, that means you have to automate. We feel that’s where the growth is, the sector that’s asking “How can we do this for a lot less money but still produce a premium product?”