Let's Go Gliding with the SSA

On Wednesday, May 30, 2012 10:47:20 AM UTC-6, soartech wrote:
On May 30, 12:36*pm, "C-FFKQ (42)" wrote:
On Tuesday, May 29, 2012 4:33:09 PM UTC-4, Frank Whiteley wrote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeOKjjaMCP0

Dumb question for today:
At around 2 minutes, there are rectangular fields with green circles... why are the crops planted in circles instead of using the full field?

-John (who's only ever seen crops filling the field area)

In the more arid areas of the US, long sprinkler pipes on wheels very
slowly roll around the field in a huge circle.
They are anchored at the middle of the circle and the water is pumped
in at that point. I'm not sure,
but I think maybe the water flow drives the wheels through some kind
of turbine and gearbox. I always
wondered about that part.

The wheels are electric and start and stop often to keep it aligned. I was talking with a share cropping farmer recently and he said the electric bill for his center pivot system from REA last year was $6600.

Seemed to me that the current draw from frequent starting was likely half of that cost. I'm told more effective systems are being developed.

Not all systems are on wells as some use river water shares. Last year a share meant you could pump all the water you wanted. This year may be different. For several years farmers only got 35-50% of their share. I always wondered why they irrigated when it was raining, but if that was your day, you took it.

A late dairy farmer, pilot, friend used river shares. He pumped using Ford 427cid engines. He got pretty good at rebuilding them. At times they'd run 24/7 for long periods.