China International AgTech Exhibition

All for Agricultural Technology

  • 17-19 March, 2025
  • NECC SHANGHAI, CHINA
EXHIBITING INFORMATION REQUEST

For Press

Subsurface irrigation called way of the future

微信截图_20240723090814.png
Early adopters in southern Alberta are pioneering the practice of delivering water directly to crop roots using drip lines

MEDICINE HAT — Subsurface drip irrigation is a relatively new system to the Prairies, but one of southern Alberta’s early adopters is confident it’s an effective way to grow crops with water efficiency rates second to none.

Subsurface irrigation systems deliver water directly to roots using drip lines and is commonly designed to be spaced between rows to allow for water migration and leave space for moisture that falls in the form of precipitation.

The biggest upside for the systems is the potential for more than 95 percent water delivery into crops’ root zone with no surface evaporation. The downside is the high upfront costs.

But for Lawrence Vandervalk of Valk Land & Cattle, there simply isn’t a better way to irrigate in southern Alberta for his wheat, barley and mustard crops as well as his forages.

Vandervalk said subsurface systems run on a 30-30-30 principal.

“Thirty percent less water, 30 percent less operating costs and 30 percent more productivity,” he said.

Vandervalk said a visit to Texas to see how that state’s farmers use the system was an eye-opening experience that made him believe this is the future of irrigation north of the border.

“You’re going to see a lot more SDI (subsurface drip irrigation) come in. There’s just no doubt about it. It’s going to come in like a storm,” he said.

“People are in love with their pivots. Even on a windy day, they are irrigating with a wetted pattern five times as big as normal with an evaporation pattern five times as big as normal.”

According to Vandervalk, some of the best high-pressure pivots yield 65 percent water delivery efficiency.

But with his subsurface system,” we’re at 96.8 plus a third less operating costs,” he said.

It also allows for stable irrigation on the corners of quarter sections.

“You’re paying taxes on that land, you own that land, it’s a pain to leave those dryland corners and they are susceptible to erosion when you get bad years,” he said.

Vandervalk did concede that installation costs are high and there can be growing pains to reach that point.

Potato crops don’t seem to be able to adapt to the system, he added.

Kees van Beek, subsurface drip irrigation specialist with Southern Irrigation, said the system can be set at variable depths depending on the soil profile.

Irrigation rates can be varied as well to the conditions, he said, with the added benefit of increasing efficiency of fertilizer applications.

“We do that first, we don’t want to have stress, and second, we want to have that even soil moisture profile. So, any given time when the plant needs it, we can add nitrogen or phosphorus or boron or other fertilizers through the drip and have that 98 percent distribution to increase yields,” said van Beek.

About 4,000 acres of subsurface systems are spread across Alberta and Saskatchewan with much of that developed in the last few years, van Beek said.

He anticipates adoption to increase in the coming years, as is happening in the United States, Europe and Israel.