News
New technology aims to help conserve underground water
New technology could help cattle feedyards improve water use efficiency.
Jas Dale with Western Kansas Irrigation says the company’s mobile education water lab can process feedyard lagoon water back into useful cattle drinking water.
“We can filter the water from 3,500 micron down to less than seven,” he says. “At the end of the filtration process, we go through a UV light and this UV light will kill the pathogens in the water.”
The mobile lab can process 40 gallons of water a minute. Earlier this month the Irsik & Doll Feedyard near Garden City hosted a demonstration.
VP of cattle feeding Brandon Depenbusch tells Brownfield…
“Is it a finished product? No, but it just demonstrates that it might be possible to reclaim water that we thought was once unusable for that higher value use,” he says.
Susan Metzger with the Kansas Water Institute at K-State says feedlots use just 2% of water on stock but rely heavily on irrigation.
“It may not sound like much, but that supports 5 million cattle turning over every year,” she says.
Research has suggested without intervention, the Ogallala Aquifer could be 70% depleted within the next 50 years.
