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> The second day I said forget this and just let the garden sprinkler run all afternoon; high water-bill be damned. That did the trick I haven't seen any repor

> The second day I said forget this and just let the garden sprinkler run all afternoon; high water-bill be damned. That did the trick I haven't seen any reporting on if the industrial scale farms actually employed evaporative cooling via sprinklers throughout the heat wave. It seems like a no-brainer when your crop is at risk and you're already presumably equipped with appropriately sized sprinklers and water supply... was it just too hot to be effective? Or did the total loss instances just stand around and watch their crops dry out and bake in the sun?

kixiQu 5y ago
It is not typical for farms to have equipment to keep sprinklers going on all parts of all fields of all crops simultaneously, as was pretty much necessary. People have equipment for normal conditions, and not a ton of idle capacity that it would have been a no-brainer to deploy.
shawabawa3 5y ago
I imagine most farmers don't have the equipment to sprinkle all their crops at the same time, normally they'd rotate what's being sprinkled. So they'd only be able to pick a small amount to save
jandrewrogers 5y ago
The Pacific Northwest is known for its highly productive dryland farming, relying on natural rainfall patterns instead of irrigation or sprinklers, which also reduces costs. Consequently, there is a relative dearth of infrastructure for distributing piped water to the crops during a severe drought or heatwave.
nate_meurer 5y ago
It wouldn't work with existing systems. For example, out here in the West, center pivot irrigation is the most common. In a quarter mile crop circle, the arm takes a full 24 hour day to make a full rotation. The bigger 1 mile circles typically take a few days. This is too slow to rescue most crops from a long stretch of 110 degree days. EDIT: Nope! I'm mistaken. I found a newsletter in my inbox from earlier this year saying that there are companies doing exactly what you propose: making high speed irrigation systems for cooling. Here's an example: https://www.agriculture.com/machinery/irrigation-equipment/high-speed-pivots https://www.agriculture.com/machinery/irrigation-equipment/h...

kixiQu 5y ago

It is not typical for farms to have equipment to keep sprinklers going on all parts of all fields of all crops simultaneously, as was pretty much necessary. People have equipment for normal conditions, and not a ton of idle capacity that it would have been a no-brainer to deploy.

shawabawa3 5y ago

I imagine most farmers don't have the equipment to sprinkle all their crops at the same time, normally they'd rotate what's being sprinkled. So they'd only be able to pick a small amount to save

jandrewrogers 5y ago

The Pacific Northwest is known for its highly productive dryland farming, relying on natural rainfall patterns instead of irrigation or sprinklers, which also reduces costs. Consequently, there is a relative dearth of infrastructure for distributing piped water to the crops during a severe drought or heatwave.

nate_meurer 5y ago

It wouldn't work with existing systems. For example, out here in the West, center pivot irrigation is the most common. In a quarter mile crop circle, the arm takes a full 24 hour day to make a full rotation. The bigger 1 mile circles typically take a few days. This is too slow to rescue most crops from a long stretch of 110 degree days. EDIT: Nope! I'm mistaken. I found a newsletter in my inbox from earlier this year saying that there are companies doing exactly what you propose: making high speed irrigation systems for cooling. Here's an example: https://www.agriculture.com/machinery/irrigation-equipment/high-speed-pivots https://www.agriculture.com/machinery/irrigation-equipment/h...