16 CapitalPress.com
January 26, 2018
Idaho Innovators
Idaho barley growers get a boost
Doug Peck
oversees effort
to help farmers
increase their
production
John O’Connell/Capital Press
Heather Rice, a hydrologist with the Aberdeen-Springfield Canal
Co., shows a small boat and sonar equipment she’ll use to docu-
ment flows through the canal system. She plans to incorporate the
data into an interactive flow model.
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho
— Doug Peck oversees a
program that researches ap-
plications for new technolo-
gy in malt barley production
and gives regional growers
better data on which to base
agronomic decisions.
In 2013, Anheuser-Bus-
ch InBev launched Smart-
Barley, a platform enabling
growers to compare their
farming practices to those
of their peers, both locally
and around the world. Data
is kept anonymous but helps
growers identify opportuni-
ties to improve their produc-
tion.
Peck, the company’s
agronomy manager for the
Idaho region, explained
SmartBarley has evolved into
an umbrella for several other
corporate projects focused on
sustainable farming.
“If we can increase the
growers’ production, that
makes it more profitable for
them and makes them want
to grow barley, and that’s
what we need to make beer,”
Peck explained during a July
17 Anheuser-Busch grower
appreciation day in Idaho
Falls.
Under the SmartBarley
mantle, Peck’s company has
partnered with the University
of Idaho in trials involving
an efficient irrigation meth-
od known as low elevation
sprinkler application.
The company has helped
six of its Eastern Idaho
growers install LESA pivots,
which dangle hoses beneath
the crop canopy to minimize
drift and evaporation while
improving soil-moisture pen-
etration.
Howard Neibling, a UI
irrigation specialist who
helped develop LESA, said
the technology should also
reduce disease and tipping
of stalks in grain by keeping
Building a better
canal system
Heather Rice
develops precise
new model using
LIDAR technology
John O’Connell/Capital Press
Doug Peck, regional agronomy manager for Busch Agricultural Resources Inc., discusses the
regional SmartBarley program he heads during a grower day at the company’s Idaho Falls malting
plant.
Doug Peck
Title: Agronomy manager for the Idaho region with Anheus-
er-Busch InBev
Innovation: Heads the company’s SmartBarley program for the
Idaho region
Home Town: Idaho Falls, Idaho
Age: 59
Family: He and his wife, Darla, have been married for 37 years
and have three grown children, Blake, Jennifer and Kayla
plant heads dry.
“(SmartBarley) is going
to be a great tool for us to be
able to fine-tune LESA, or
whatever else we’re doing,”
Neibling said.
SmartBarley participant
Justin Place, of Hamer, es-
timates his power savings
alone this season will cover
the cost of installing LESA
on six pivots. Place has also
benefited from having one
of six new weather stations
SmartBarley funded to pro-
vide more applicable weath-
er data in the Eastern Idaho
barley production area, as
part of the Bureau of Recla-
mation’s AgriMet program.
Place said SmartBarley data
on crop evapo-transpiration
has guided some of his irri-
gation decisions.
Mud Lake farmer Mark
Murdock decided to apply a
growth inhibitor to his barley
this season based on Smart-
Barley comparisons.
“The problem we have
in Mud Lake is wind,” Mur-
dock said, explaining that
grain tends to blow over.
Peck said his program is
developing models to help
growers use aerial images
to predict yields and protein
content long before har-
vest. The company started
researching the models last
season with satellite data,
and will use drones with
near-infrared cameras this
season to gather data from
its research fields in Idaho,
Montana and North Dako-
ta. Peck said models will
be based on images of crop
mass and appearance taken
during the season.
“We’re just in the initial
startup, and we’ve really got
to see where it can take us,”
Peck said.
The Champaign, Ill.-
based company Agrible is as-
sisting the program with data
analytics.
Todd Weitekamp, Agrible
product line manager, said
the company compiles data
about chemical applica-
tions, soil type, seed variety,
weather and other factors for
analysis by its advanced soft-
ware.
Agrible can estimate soil
moisture without the use of
sensors to guide irrigation
decisions, and can offer good
estimates on crop progress
and health, Weitekamp said.
He said some Idaho Smart-
Barley growers are in their
second year of an Agrible
trial.
This story was first pub-
lished on July 17, 2017.
Heather Rice
Age: 34
Hometown: Pingree, Idaho
Job: Hydrologist with Aber-
deen-Springfield Canal Co.
Family: Husband, Sean Rice
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
ABERDEEN, Idaho — By
the time Heather Rice com-
pletes her master’s degree
thesis, Aberdeen-Springfield
Canal Co. will have a unique-
ly precise and high-tech pre-
dictive model of its entire sys-
tem that will help managers
cope with increasing grower
demand for water.
Rice, who joined the canal
company’s staff as a hydrol-
ogist in August 2015, started
collecting flow data to cre-
ate the interactive model last
spring.
She’s pioneering the use of
Light Detection and Ranging
technology in canal manage-
ment, which will also serve as
her project toward a master’s
degree in water resource man-
agement at the University of
Idaho.
3-D canal model
LIDAR is used to create
highly accurate 3-dimensional
images of objects. It emits and
tracks laser pulses that mea-
sure the distance to objects.
Rice’s work could have
far-reaching benefits for canal
management in Eastern Idaho.
Starting in a couple of years,
Aberdeen-Springfield’s board
of directors plans to contract
with other canal companies
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Innovation: Developing an
interactive model of the Aber-
deen-Springfield canal system
to predict how the system will
respond to increased flows,
as producers who have been
irrigating with wells for several
decades return to the system
to reduce their groundwater
use.
to help them create their
own predictive models, seek-
ing to defray the company’s
$120,000 investment in the
LIDAR technology.
“I would hope (the project)
would encourage other canal
companies that aren’t using
science to manage their water
to start doing so,” Rice said.
“In the past, we’ve used sci-
ence as the basis for a lot of
our management decisions,
and it seems to work out a lot
better.”
This summer, the compa-
ny’s staff will use a tiny boat
with a sonar device aboard to
record square footage and wa-
ter velocity to quantify flows
and volume losses throughout
the 176-mile canal system.
A small probe with a pro-
peller will be used in narrow
lateral canals. LIDAR read-
ings will be taken starting in
October when the canal is
empty, and will also record
how changes in substrate
affects water friction. Rice
will adapt the U.S. Bureau
of Reclamation’s specialized
software to calculate how ma-
nipulating variables, such as
flows, impacts the system.
Many growers throughout
the system are switching to
canal water to irrigate thou-
sands of acres that for decades
have been irrigated using
wells. Under a recent water
call settlement junior ground-
water users must reduce their
reliance on well water.
Predictive model
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Education: A bachelor’s
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rently working on a master’s
in water resources manage-
ment at UI
Rice explained that the
model will help her predict
how constrictions, sink holes
and other obstacles might
impede deliveries, enabling
managers to install liners,
widen or deepen the canal or
build up banks as needed.
“We want a predictive
model that allows us to ad-
dress issues before we have
to start delivering water,” said
Aberdeen-Springfield general
manager Steve Howser. “We
have yet to find another canal
company that’s doing some-
thing like this.”
Howser said the compa-
ny has two other technicians
working on modeling. Tanner
Daley is assisting Rice, and
Cephas Holder has been de-
veloping a 3-D groundwater
model specific to the canal
system.
Howser said the ground-
water model will be calibrat-
ed by daily measurements
from 27 wells along the canal.
The model will help the com-
pany determine where to dig
wells to recover seepage lost
from the system, and where
to install liners to keep farm
fields from becoming boggy
in areas where the water table
is too high.
This story was first pub-
lished on April 23, 2017.