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~~ ,, ,.~ ~--- NCWCD's irrigation management services help fulfill the district's mandate to encourage wise resource management by promoting best management practices that make good business sense. Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, Colorado For over sixteen years, the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District (NCWCD) has run an irrigation manage- ment service to assist area farmers in voluntary efforts to improve water man- agement and conservation practices. The NCWCD's conservation program includes: ^ Irrigation scheduling demonstrations on about 100 fields annually involving about 40 farmers who participate for two to three years each; ^ Fourteen automatic weather stations to provide weather and calculated crop water use data to the NCWCD via cellular phones; ^ Non-point source pollution education through demonstration plots of hest management practices for irrigation and fertilization of agricultural row crops; 56 ^ On-farm demonstrations of surge irrigation methods, made possible through the annual lending of over 30 surge valves to area farmers, couplet with technical assistance in setting up and programming the controls; and ^ Assistance to farmers in the establish- ment and monitoring of agricultural water quality standards -focusing on return flows from municipal wastewate treatment plants. Surge valves and Irrigation Scheduling One of the NCWCD's principal conserva- tion efforts combines the use of surge irrigation and root zone water-balance measurements to help farmers achieve optimal irrigation applications. Surge irrigation uses special valves to advance water down the furrows through wetting and drying cycles. The valves put surges o water onto crops, letting the water soak into the soil before the next surge. The NCWCD program lends the valves to farmers to use on their fields for aone-yea trial period. The farmers then have an option to buy the valves at a reduced pricf