North Plains Water News

April 2024

Sloane to Direct District Ag Demonstrations

Sloane teaching about managing irrigation using soil moisture probes at the district’s first Master Irrigator Program in 2016.

David Sloane, Ph. D will oversee conservation demonstrations at the district’s North Plains Water Conservation Center (WCC) at Etter. Sloane is familiar to many growers in the area as one of the principal promoters of, and educators about, soil probe technology for more than a decade in the North Plains area. Currently Sloan remains the Chief Agronomist for GroGuru Inc., and will concurrently serve the district as Demonstration Lead Investigator at the WCC for the 2024-25 Season.

Sloane has worked in agronomy for over 25 years, after receiving his Bachelor of Science degree in agriculture from the University of Sydney in Australia in 1992. In 1999, Sloane completed his doctorate in Agronomy from the University of Adelaide, Australia. He has coordinated numerous on-farm trials and demonstrations both in Australia and in the United States.

Sloane is, however, best known in the Texas Panhandle-Plains region for his many years of evangelizing and educating about the benefits of soil moisture probes for farmers, to promote water use efficiency and conservation. The District first began working with Sloane in 2009 as part of the “200-12 Project,” when he, in his role as Principal Agronomist for AquaSpy, introduced the capacitance soil moisture probe to the District as a technological alternative to gypsum blocks and hand-push probes.

Sloane excelled at teaching growers and researchers how these tools could make them better managers of a resource that we can’t see with the naked eye. The tools have proved their worth over more than a decade of demonstrations at the WCC and are now an indispensable tool for many growers in the district.

Sloane has already been working closely with WCC farm operator, Stan Spain and district management and personnel to establish a demonstration plan for the 2024-25 season.

Visit the Texas 4-H Water Ambassador Website

2023 Production Report Update

By November 22, 2023, the online production portal was the method given to the production recipients to access their reports. The new online access gave the producer the ability to fill out the report(s) online and send directly to the district or download the blank production report(s) to pdf files, fill out and send by email, mail or in person.

Out of 2948 production reports, 2300 were reported online with assistance from the district as needed. The remaining 648 production reports were reported by mail, email or in person.

Online access gave the producer the following advantages:

1. Access to their reports online anytime after they had been set up, and no waiting to receive an emailed or mailed copy.

2. The ability to start entering production and save what had been entered and come back to it.

3. Entry of meter readings with automatically calculated totals.

4. A copy of completed reports for their records after they had been submitted.

5. All reports, once submitted, went directly to the district.

6. When approved, an automatic status of the report via email.

7. Any needed changes or addition of meters, including rolled over meters were corrected by the district, when requested, and showed up on the online report.

Issues that were noted:

Online access was not available if the district did not have a current cell phone # and email address for the recipient. (This can be readily corrected when requested). An updated cell phone number and email address are required to be on file at the district.

Production Reports were not set up with correct recipient – (Note: Change of ownership/leases/recipients need to be reported to the district within thirty days after purchase of property or finalization of lease).

All reestablishments of GPUs for the current 2024 Production Year are required to be requested on the GPU request forms available here.

The request must be made no later than December 31, 2024 and must be clear and meet the minimum standard outlined in Chapter 7 of the district rules. Anything that is not clear or within our GPU rules will not be accepted. If you are not sure, please contact the district, we are here to assist you please email us at production@northplainsgcd.org.

Update on 2023 Winter Water Level Measurements

The above map shows the locations of the North Plains GCD observation well network. The network consists of 453 wells the field staff measure each winter, after wells have been stopped for production and before they are started back up again in preparation for the new season. The measurements made in January, February, and March are the end readings for the previous year.

Once the data is collected and processed, the District’s Hydrologist uses the information for the Annual Hydrology report. The data is also used to create various county-based contour maps. The maps include calculated depth to water (DTW), saturated thickness (every other year), depletion maps, and average decline maps. Additionally, the collected information is provided to the Texas Water Development Board to assist their efforts in groundwater management and groundwater modeling.

This year district staff completed the measurements on March 15th 2024. Below is a summary of the measurements for the year ending 2023.

Summary of Winter Water Level Measurements for 2024.

County	Total Wells	Number Visited	Number Measured	% Measured
DA	70	70	61	87%
HA	64	64	51	80%
HN	72	71	65	90%
HU	26	25	25	96%
MO	62	62	57	92%
SH	63	62	59	94%
LI	47	47	36	77%
OC	49	49	44	90%
	453	450	398
		99%	88%

Important Links...

North Plains Groundwater Conservation District

(806) 935-6401

info@northplainsgcd.org

northplainsgcd.org

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