News
Membrane installations paying off on sandy ground
Farmers with sandy soil are seeing the benefits of a new membrane technology developed at Michigan State University which keeps water and nutrients closer to the root zone.
Steve Law with SWRT Solutions, or Soil Water Retention Technology, tells Brownfield this is the first growing season commercially installed membranes have been in production. He says they help keeps inputs where they are needed and, “Saves up to half of the irrigation water that might normally be applied, and for dryland farmers, it gives them the opportunity to get much more use from their water that might normally percolate through their root zone and be lost,” Law explains.
Law says for more than 25 years, Dr. Alvin Smucker has been developing the polyethylene membranes to be installed underground. A prototype machine works similar to a plow and can install about five acres a day.
At this time, Law says it costs between $2,000 to $3,000 per acre and is a long-term investment just like field tile.
“Tile installers have made great strides in their ability to cover many acres in a day and I expect that our machinery will evolve and be much more commercially viable,” he says.
Law says work is also underway in Africa through MSU to use the technology which has seen crop yield increases up to five-fold there.
The concept earned Dr. Smucker the MSU Innovator of the Year in 2015.
