Project Grant NR203A750013G017

The U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Reclamation, through its WaterSMART (Sustain and Manage America's Resources for Tomorrow) program (CFDA 15.507), awarded a $4,511,673 project grant to the Turlock Irrigation District (TID) located in California's Central Valley. The funding will enable TID's Civil Engineering Division to improve and automate five drop structures on the district's main canal. This project involves modifying the drop structures, installing new automated gates, and...

The Lower Republican Natural Resources District in Nebraska will install telemetry equipment on 1,057 irrigation flow meters and other water management sensors, as well as eight solar-powered weather stations across the district, to improve on-farm water management and reporting through real-time water use data collection and broadcasting under a $4,360,858 Project Grant from the Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation. Funded through Reclamation's WaterSMART program, the project aims...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) awarded a $300,000 project grant to Michigan State University (MSU) under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program. The objectives of this 3-year project, starting July 1, 2024, are to: (1) develop an educational decision-support tool for controlled drainage to help farmers and stakeholders make informed site-specific decisions, and (2) evaluate the effectiveness of the tool in...

The Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service awarded Washington State University a $136,931 project grant under the Agricultural Research Basic and Applied Research program (CFDA 10.001) to determine the efficacy of subsurface drip (SDI) versus surface drip (SD) irrigation delivery methods for optimizing water use in winegrape management. The grant period is from September 1, 2021 through October 31, 2024. As part of the Agricultural Research Basic and Applied Research program's...

This Project Grant award, valued at $650,000 and awarded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) through the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) program, aims to empirically assess the importance and sustainability of adaptive irrigation under climate change. The three key objectives are: 1) estimating the link between extreme heat and adaptive irrigation, 2) predicting groundwater stock dynamics under climate change, and 3) analyzing...

The San Luis Water District in central California was awarded a $212,750 Project Grant from the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Reclamation under the WaterSMART (Sustain and Manage America's Resources for Tomorrow) program (CFDA 15.507). The grant will fund the installation of water level monitoring instrumentation and programmable logic controllers at two canal locations in the district's irrigation system. This will allow the district staff to closely monitor canal levels and...

Transcend Engineering and Technology, LLC was awarded a $181,395 Project Grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture within the Department of Agriculture under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program. The grant aims to develop a spatially dense, multi-level soil moisture sensor using commodity radio frequency electronic components to infer soil water content from dielectric properties. Phase I will determine feasibility and quantify tradeoffs between accuracy and...

This Project Grant award from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program (CFDA 10.212) provides $645,887 to Irrigation For The Future Inc. to develop and demonstrate an advanced irrigation decision support system (DSS). The key products and services to be delivered include: An auto-calibration system that uses adaptive feedback and remote sensing data to optimize the modeling algorithms in the...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Resources Conservation Service awarded a $4,885,341 Project Grant to Mississippi State University to develop and demonstrate innovative agricultural conservation approaches through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (CFDA 10.912). The purpose is to stimulate the adoption of technologies that reduce freshwater demand and greenhouse gas emissions in rice production, specifically through automating tailwater reuse systems. Mississippi State...

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $650,000 Project Grant under the NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (CFDA #47.084) program to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - Office of Research Administration. The grant supports the development of a user-tailored irrigation water management decision-support hub focused on California's Central Valley. The project aims to provide individual growers with high-resolution, daily irrigation advice by integrating satellite...