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B6 | Friday, July 17, 2015 * * THEWALL STREET JOURNAL.
BUSINESS NEWS
thing from soil temperature toair pressure to help better un-derstand how much water theircrops need.
In late 2013, Terlato WineGroup, a large producer of Cali-fornia wines, began testing onenew system from Tule Technol-ogies Inc. on 130 of its 600wine-grape acres, said ViceChairman John Terlato. Throughits wire sensors, Tule quantifies
how much water the plants actu-ally use day to day by measuringthe water they release as vapor.It has allowed Terlato to irrigateits vines with the amount theyneed when they need it, yieldinghigher-quality grapes and reduc-ing water usage by 20% on thoseacres, he said. This year, Terlatois nearly tripling its acreage us-ing Tule’s system.
Mr. Terlato’s company has
equipment.Their emergence underscores
the resilience of a U.S. agricul-tural sector long accustomed tothe vagaries of weather but un-der increasing pressure in recentyears from foreign growers thatsell to American supermarketsas well as rising costs and regu-latory mandates. Along withleaving fields unplanted and di-verting water to higher-valuecrops like berries or nuts, farm-ers in California—the nation’sbiggest agricultural producerand exporter—are implementingrobotics and other techniquesfor boosting productivity.
It isn’t clear whether the na-scent water technologies cansignificantly dent water use andsoothe concerns about availabil-ity in the near term. But somefarmers and water-efficiency ad-vocates say adopting new pro-cesses and technologies couldcut agricultural water use by10% to 25%.
A preliminary study in Juneby the Center for Watershed Sci-ences at the University of Cali-
fornia, Davis, estimated thedrought would cause $2.7 billionin statewide economic lossesthis year from farmers fallowingmore than a half-million acres ofland and 18,600 agriculture-re-lated job losses. California re-cently ordered holders of someof the oldest and most signifi-cant water-rights claims in thestate, many of whom are farm-ers, to stop drawing water.
Daniel Sumner, an agricul-tural economist at UC Davis, saidthat people focused simply oncutting absolute water use arelooking at it the wrong way.Growers who find new ways toproduce more food per unit ofwater may generate bigger gainsin water efficiency, he said. “Ifwe can grow more food with ourwater, that’s presumably whatwe would like to do,” he said.
One of the biggest ways thatis happening is through thereams of agricultural data seep-ing into water technology.
Growers say they are regu-larly receiving sales pitches fornew tools that measure every-
scrutinized its water use foryears. Yet Mr. Terlato, like manygrowers, is irked by a general-ized perception in California thatfarmers are taking more thantheir share of water.
The “big, wide brush that ev-erybody is using too much wateris a generalization, and I knowthere are a lot of people workinghard out there to be thoughtfulabout this,” he said.
San Francisco-based Tule,founded in December 2013, hassold more than 320 systems sofar, many to wine vineyards. Itssensors, which each cover about10 acres of land, cost $1,500apiece.
For some growers, water-con-servation investments also are astrategic calculation. Publiclytraded Limoneira Co., withabout 7,300 acres of citrus andavocados, is preparing now forlong-term water limits it expectswill eventually be based on his-torical usage rates.
For about seven years, it hascarpeted its groves with mulchmade from yard waste and con-struction debris to stem soil-moisture evaporation, cuttingwater use by between 15% and25%, said Chief Operating OfficerAlex Teague. But last year, theSanta Paula, Calif., company in-stalled plastic tubes that collectwater samples as far as two feetbelow the ground on 400 of itsacres in a pilot project to bettermonitor nutrient and moisturelevels. Limoneira also this springbegan testing a new irrigationsystem by Netafim IrrigationInc. Instead of the fan jets Limo-neira currently uses, which sit 12to 24 inches from the groundand lose about 15% of their wa-ter to evaporation, it is a systemof tubes, dotted with holes, thatlies on the ground. It can pumpa higher volume of water duringthe hottest parts of the day di-rectly to trees and lose less wa-ter to evaporation because it iscloser to the ground.
Mr. Teague estimates thecombination of better monitor-ing and new irrigation tech-niques could save an additional25% of water use when deployedthroughout the company, andcome in handy soon. By loweringwater needs now, “you’re givingyourself a cushion” for futuredry spells, he said.
SCATTERED RAIN INTO NEXT WEEKSCATTERED RAIN INTO NEXT WEEK
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ICE US CottonWeatherto Buy or Sell
Reproductive cottonacross the North ChinaPlain will receive abeneficial moisture boostfrom scattered showersand thunderstorms overthe next 7-10 days.
Scattered thunderstorms across theNCP through next week.
China
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Buffalo 77 70 t 82 71 cBurlington 82 65 pc 82 67 rCharlotte 93 72 pc 95 71 tChicago 88 73 t 91 73 sCincinnati 90 73 c 90 74 pcCleveland 83 72 t 87 73 pcDallas 97 79 s 98 81 sDenver 92 57 pc 86 59 pcDetroit 86 71 t 90 74 pcHonolulu 90 77 c 89 75 pcHouston 94 78 s 97 78 sIndianapolis 88 73 c 91 75 sKansas City 92 76 pc 91 74 pcLas Vegas 104 81 s 94 75 t
Little Rock 96 77 s 97 78 sLos Angeles 82 63 pc 81 70 tMemphis 96 79 s 96 81 sMiami 90 77 t 89 78 pcMilwaukee 85 71 t 89 71 pcMpls./St. Paul 88 71 s 88 62 tNashville 96 76 s 96 77 sNew Orleans 92 78 t 94 79 sNew York 82 70 s 86 74 tOklahoma City 95 75 s 96 77 pcOmaha 95 75 s 93 69 pcOrlando 88 74 t 89 73 tPhiladelphia 84 70 pc 92 74 tPhoenix 102 85 pc 93 81 t
Pittsburgh 84 73 pc 88 72 pcPortland, ME 75 61 s 74 64 rPortland, OR 85 61 pc 97 66 sSacramento 98 63 s 92 62 sSt. Louis 94 78 pc 96 78 sSalt Lake City 87 65 s 80 63 cSan Diego 77 69 pc 83 74 tSan Francisco 76 61 pc 77 60 pcSan Jose 84 61 pc 82 60 pcSanta Fe 85 58 pc 84 57 pcSeattle 82 61 s 91 62 sSioux Falls 91 68 t 86 61 tTucson 94 75 t 90 73 tWash., DC 87 76 pc 94 77 t
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Calgary 60 50 r 75 56 cEdmonton 66 47 r 76 55 pcMontreal 79 64 pc 81 66 rToronto 73 66 t 86 68 cVancouver 74 58 s 80 61 sWinnipeg 77 57 t 71 56 t
Amsterdam 75 58 s 69 56 pcAthens 90 74 s 90 73 sBerlin 89 65 t 81 60 pcBrussels 79 56 s 70 52 sBudapest 90 66 s 95 69 pcCopenhagen 72 58 t 71 55 pcDublin 63 49 sh 63 50 shEdinburgh 64 50 sh 61 48 shFrankfurt 97 68 pc 83 61 tGeneva 96 68 pc 91 65 tIstanbul 85 71 s 84 71 sLisbon 79 63 pc 84 64 pcLondon 74 55 pc 72 54 pcMadrid 99 67 pc 95 70 pcMilan 96 73 t 97 72 pcMoscow 69 52 pc 70 50 rNice 85 74 s 86 75 sParis 86 62 s 79 59 sPrague 91 66 pc 92 63 tRome 92 73 s 93 72 sSt. Petersburg 70 53 r 70 57 pcStockholm 68 55 pc 69 54 pcVienna 92 68 pc 98 74 pcWarsaw 81 59 pc 89 61 tZurich 94 65 t 89 63 t
Bangkok 92 80 t 92 81 tBeijing 86 70 t 88 70 cHanoi 90 80 t 89 79 tHong Kong 92 81 t 91 82 tJakarta 90 74 c 90 74 sKarachi 92 85 pc 92 84 cManila 87 78 t 88 78 cMelbourne 50 41 sh 52 37 pcMumbai 91 82 t 89 81 tNew Delhi 92 79 t 89 78 tSeoul 85 68 pc 86 69 pcShanghai 82 73 c 82 73 pcSingapore 88 79 t 89 79 tSydney 58 46 r 59 46 shTaipei 90 79 t 91 79 tTokyo 84 77 r 85 77 r
Bogota 66 46 t 66 47 tBuenos Aires 61 52 s 65 48 sCaracas 72 66 t 71 65 pcLima 72 64 c 72 63 cMexico City 73 56 t 74 56 tRio de Janeiro 81 68 pc 80 67 pcSantiago 61 41 s 59 39 sSao Paulo 77 60 pc 74 59 pc
Baghdad 119 90 s 115 88 sCairo 97 75 s 99 75 sJerusalem 88 68 s 89 68 sJohannesburg 55 32 pc 63 31 sRiyadh 113 89 s 112 87 sTehran 100 79 s 97 77 s
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Albany 82 67 pc 84 68 tAlbuquerque 88 65 pc 87 67 pcAnchorage 65 55 sh 68 54 shAtlanta 92 75 t 94 76 tAustin 95 75 s 96 74 sBaltimore 84 70 pc 92 73 tBoise 83 56 s 85 59 sBoston 78 65 s 79 70 sh
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It has been two decades sinceWillie Hartman started makingfarm equipment that helps grow-ers conserve water, but salesdidn’t take off until the past fouryears. Credit goes, in part, toCalifornia’s worst drought in atleast half a century.
Farmers in the Golden State’s$45 billion agricultural economyare increasingly thirsty for waysto save water, prompting a burstin demand for tools and pro-cesses like Mr. Hartman’s OnTarget Sprayer.
At a cost of $20,000 to$50,000 each, Mr. Hartman’s ma-chines electrically charge mistsof pesticides and plant nutrientsin a way that causes them tostick to leaves more evenly, us-ing about 80% less water thanconventional chemical-sprayrigs. Sales at his ProgressiveGrower Technologies Inc. arerising 30% a year, more than tri-ple the rate four years ago, hesaid.
“Everybody’s aware of waternow,” Mr. Hartman said. “Every-body’s watching it.”
Farmers in the arid West longhave sought to lower their costs,including for water. But it oftenhas taken a back seat to pressingconcerns about labor, energy andother expenses. Now a droughtthat has stretched for four yearsis heightening attention to waterefficiency by California growersof crops, whether almonds, ol-ives or peaches—and opening anew market opportunity forthose peddling novel solutionsand others whose products re-ceived little notice until now.
New technologies range froma nontoxic gel made by MoasisInc. that, mixed into soil, storesand slowly releases water nearroots, to companies using satel-lite and aerial imagery to helpfarmers better plan how to irri-gate crops based on how sec-tions of their fields are faring. Awater-pump monitor made byPowWow Energy Inc. alertsfarmers to leaks in irrigation
BY ILAN BRAT
California Drought Plants Seeds for TechFarmers more willing toinvest in new processesand monitors thatpromise to save water
Dan Galbraith shows the top of a water sensor in a lemon grove near Terra Bella, Calif. Limoneira is also testing a new irrigation system.
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Thistles grow in an abandoned vineyard near Terra Bella, Calif.
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