Water management. An ongoing issue for growers across the country and around the world. To learn more about some of the big water management issues in agriculture, I turned to Luke Bunkers with Ag Leader who spent some time with me during the 2014 Iowa Power Farming Show.

Today with input costs and costs of fertilizer and seed being as high as they are when you don’t get the crop planted and a good emerged crop with a good stand to it, you don’t get the max benefits out of the crop that you can, explained Bunkers. He noted that too much water is a big proponent of this as well as not enough water and this is where water management comes in.

One of the solutions, said Bunkers, is adding tile to fields. Ag Leader has some precision ag technology, such as the Intellislop tile plow control system, that can raise the success rate of water management. Ag Leader also has software, such as the SMS Advanced Water Management module, that can help develop a tile plan and then analyze the data at any give moment or over time once the plan has been executed.

“The tile plan gives the grower an idea of what the whole system is going to look like including how many feet of tile, what the discharge of that system is going to be, how much water is that system going to be able to handle so Ag Leader encompasses all sides of water management with these two technologies,” explained Bunkers.

Bunkers stressed that every farm is different and tile systems can be put in during the fall or spring. He is going to be participating in some tile clinics during the next few weeks in North and South Dakota put on by Hefty Brothers.

Listen to my full interview with Luke Bunkers: Ag Leader's Luke Bunkers on Water Management

Click here to view the 2014 Iowa Power Farming Show photo album.