Irrigation

Within the irrigation tab, you can:

• access the irrigation dashboard (Input Form)
• run an irrigation report (Field Report)
• run a pump run time and electricity usage report (Pump Report) (optional tab)

Before the irrigation tab can be used, an administrative user must have entered:

• fields
• irrigation devices

Additionally, an administrative user can select whether to track pump electricity usage and runtime (pump logging).

• Input Form
• Field Report
• Pump Report (optional tab)

Input Form

This input form differs from others in FARMDATA in many ways:

• it is meant to be used for real-time tracking of an irrigation session, rather than for data entry after the fact
• if multiple users access this form simultaneously, they will all see the same real-time dashboard display
• the dashboard automatically refreshes every two minutes so that updates made by any user will be visible to all users
• the irrigation session remains active until one user clicks "Submit"

To start an irrigation session:

• select the date
• FARMDATA will display an valves left open during the previous irrigation session
• if pump logging is selected, the Drive Hz and Outlet PSI can be entered now. (They must be entered before updating the pump log.)
• enter any comments
• click the "Update Comments" button (if pump logging is selected, the button will be called "Update Pump Log"). This updates comments and any pump logging information so that it is visible to other users, and starts tracking of pump runtime.
• the button will turn green for two seconds if the update is successful
• if the comments/pump log are not updated, any information entered will be lost when the dashboard refreshes. The "Seconds to Page Refresh" box indicates the time until the next refresh.

To start irrigating fields:

• click the "Add Field" button at the bottom of the screen to add each field to be irrigated. For each field:

  • select the field
  • select the irrigation device. By default, the device most recently used in this field will be selected, but you can select any device.
  • click the Valve toggle to turn irrigation on. If the valve to this field is closed during the irrigation session, click the toggle to indicate this. Similarly, click the toggle if/when irrigation to this field resumes.
  • FARMDATA will update the number of minutes that this field has been irrigated every two minutes.

• use the "Remove Field" button only to remove the last field added, and only when that field was added in error.

• use the "Cancel" button to terminate an irrigation session without recording any data from that session.

• use the "Submit" button to terminate an irrigation session and record the data.
• before clicking submit, make sure that the positions of the valves on the dashboard correspond to the actual open/closed status of those valves. FARMDATA will display any valves left open at the start of the next irrigation session.

Field Report

To run a field irrigation report:

• select a date range
• click "Submit"
• FARMDATA will then display a table with one row for each date in the range, and one column for each field. Fields with overhead irrigation are displayed in the columns to the left, while fields with drip irrigation are displayed to the right. The field names are redisplayed every 10 rows to assist in keeping track of fields for long reports.
• for each date and field, the time that the field was irrigated on that date is displayed (in hours). If a field has received overhead irrigation for at least 45 minutes or drip irrigation for at least three hours in a particular day, the background of that cell in the table will turn white. On following days, the background color becomes darker and darker to indicate the time since that field has last received water (unless the field is irrigated again or rainfall occurs). The color reaches maximum darkness in 7 days.
• to record rainfall in the irrigation report, fill in the rainfall total (in inches) for that day, and then click the "update" button for that day.
• if rainfall of at least half an inch is recorded, all fields are considered to be fully watered for that day, and cell background colors update as for irrigation.
• if desired, use the "Download Report" button to download the report as a Comma Separated Value (CSV) file that can be opened as a spreadsheet.

Pump Report (optional tab)

To run a pump report:

• select a date range
• click "Submit
• FARMDATA will then display all pump records for each irrigation session in the date range.
• if desired, use the "Download Report" button to download the report as a Comma Separated Value (CSV) file that can be opened as a spreadsheet.