By Gary Stone, Nebraska Extension Educator
The Yonts Water Conference will be held on Wednesday, April 10, at the Panhandle Research, Extension, and Education Center, in Scottsbluff. The morning begins at 8:30 a.m. with registration.
The conference will begin at 9 a.m. with Dr. Xin Qiao, Nebraska Extension water and irrigation management specialist. He will discuss ways to improve irrigation efficiencies and give a research update on new irrigation technologies.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation personnel will provide an update on the snowpack and expected runoff in the Upper North Platte River Basin. The information is critical for downstream water users planning their estimated irrigation water use and crop planting. Approximately 75 percent of the North Platte River flow comes from this area above Casper, Wyo.
Representatives from HDR Engineering and the Goshen Irrigation District will present an update on the progress of replacing Tunnel No. 1 and Tunnel No. 2, which collapsed and caused a breach of the canal in 2019. Both tunnels are in Wyoming on the main line canal of the Goshen / Gering-Ft. Laramie Irrigation districts. To learn more on the breach and its impact on growers on the system, visit https://cropwatch.unl.edu/tags/canal-irrigation?page=0%2C2
The morning will wrap up with Don Day of the DayWeather Podcast. He will provide a forecast and weather outlook for the spring/summer of 2024.
The Yonts Water Conference is free, but registration is requested at https://go.unl.edu/yonts by April 5.
The conference is named after C. Dean Yonts, who was the irrigation specialist for many years at the Panhandle Research, Extension, and Education Center.