In an area of suplemental irrigation, like the delta region of west central Mississippi, pivots are at their best when asked to perform in a variety of summer weather conditions. The summer of 2000 provided just such an opportunity. “We saw a renewed interest in center pivot irrigation after that summer. It was hot, dry and windy from early spring until late summer,” repor Mark and Don Barger of Big D. Inc., Greenwood, Mississippi.

“The 2000 crop year was unique. Many farmers with center pivots on tight, heavy soils experienced greater yield increases than normal an greater increases than those on lighter soils using various methods of irrigation,” Don Barger explains. “Mechanized irrigation saved several cotton crops from disaster, and, in some cases, paid for the initial investment in just one season.”

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The development of the center pivot sprinkler over the past 20 years was an advance in the state of irrigation technology comparable to micro-irrigation, plastic pipe and laser leveling. The only thing that has possibly meant more to the practice of irrigation than these would be the wide use of efficient, centrifugal and turbine pumps.

The center pivot has opened up thousands of acres to irrigated, agronomic crops and increased production o thousands more. Farms that could not use surface methods because of topography and could not economically justify portable, side-roll or solid set sprinklers had no alternative to dry land agriculture until the advent of the center pivot.

The pivot solved the problems of topography, economics, labor and deficient water supplies. Pivots are in use in nearly every country in the world on nearly every crop and the contribution of the pivot to the world’s agriculture cannot be overestimated.

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