A John Deere Publication

Autonomous irrigation systems spoon-feed water to crops

Ray Flickner remembers using siphon tubes when his uncle drilled the area's first irrigation well in 1955. Now, autonomous irrigation systems spoon-feed water to the Kansas farmer's crops.

Agriculture, Education February 01, 2025

Irrigation Innovation

Technology is driving this farmer’s conservation commitment.

by Bill Spiegel

At first glance, the hulking black machine on the south side of Arrowhead Avenue looks like the AT-AT Walker combat robot in Star Wars™. Except this isn't a galaxy far, far away. It's a soybean field in the middle of Kansas. Here, Ray Flickner and his son, Ryan, are deploying the latest irrigation technology on their 950-acre farm, including this rig: the 360 RAIN^® irrigation system.

New to the Flickners in 2024, the autonomous machine applies irrigation water at ground level, using Y-Drop-type nozzles spread across a 60-foot boom. The entire unit is attached to an irrigation well via a 3-inch hose line that autonomously lays down and picks up the hose while irrigating irregularly shaped fields.

That the Flickners are innovators in the irrigation space is not a surprise. The family came to McPherson County, Kansas, in 1874. They built their farm out of the Kansas prairie using the tools of the day: horses and moldboard plows, growing predominantly winter wheat.

Eight decades later, Ray's uncle was the first to drill an irrigation well in the county. "We used portable sprinkler pipe and siphon tubes," recalls Ray. "It was very intensive."

About two decades ago, Ray converted that original irrigation well to subsurface drip irrigation (SDI), because that system worked best for the shape of the farm, and its topography.

"It's much more efficient, since you're delivering water under the ground during the growing season," he explains. With SDI, the Flickners can apply fertilizer via the system, which features drip tubes about 16-inches deep. The SDI system leaves the soil surface dry as opposed to center pivot systems, which dampen the topsoil. When it rains, fields using SDI can capture that water, whereas pivot-irrigated soils are saturated and cannot capture more precipitation.

The Flickners have about 650 acres in SDI now. They also have one small conventional center pivot system and another, larger center pivot system retrofitted with drip tape, a concept called Precision Mobile Drip Irrigation (PMDI™), with emitters placed at 20-inches and 30-inches.

They farm in an area called the Equus Beds Aquifer, which provides drinking water for several central Kansas cities, including Wichita and Hutchinson. This shallow water table generally features wells producing from 400 to 650 gallons per minute and tend to recharge each year. The last two years, however, have been unusually dry, compromising uniformity of water applied to crops, Ryan notes. On one of the wells, the volume drops to 300 gallons per minute toward the end of summer. That's not enough volume for a conventional center pivot; therefore, the PMDI system is ideal for their application.

"There's no yield difference between 20-inch and the less expensive 30-inch spacing," he says. "But until we did the research we would not have known."

Good stewardship. The Flickners have adopted reduced tillage programs and are working to incorporate cover crops to suppress weeds and improve soil health. They routinely grid sample fields and tissue test corn, spoon-feeding fertilizer to their acres as needed. Crop monitoring is done with a combination of plant-based sensors and ground moisture probes. One of the research projects compares several drone imagery companies, attempting to learn which provides the most accurate information in-season.

In all, the goal is to use less water. "We estimate we use about 40% less water than the county average of farmers using center pivot systems," Ray says.

Above. On the Flickner Innovation Farm near Moundridge, Kansas, Ryan (left) and Ray Flickner cooperate with researchers across multiple disciplines to determine the most efficient and economic methods of irrigation.

A blank canvas. At any given time, the Flickners collaborate with about a dozen university, industry, and agency partners who collectively run 10 to 15 research projects across multiple disciplines, from basic agronomy to potential nitrate impairments in groundwater.

"I tell our partners and collaborators that this is a blank canvas," says Ray, waving his arm toward his fields. "They get to paint it however they want to paint it."

Susan Metzger, head of the Kansas Water Research Institute at Kansas State University, says real-world research is vital to the state's mission of preserving groundwater for future generations.

"It's one thing to do beautifully replicated science on our agronomy fields north of campus. It's a whole other thing to work with people like Ray and Ryan Flickner year after year and marry science with their planting decisions for that year," Metzger says. "Together, we're learning about a topic that is critically important to producers, while getting great information and science at the same time."

The Flickners host visitors to the farm in an annual field day, which in 2024 welcomed dozens of farmers seeking new ideas.

Meanwhile, Ray and Ryan constantly seek the best economic return for the farm.

"Profitability is a key component to running any business," Ray explains. "But there is also the desire and need to leave the farm in a better state than we found it. If we erode the soil, future generations will be limited in what they can do."

In 2023, the Flickners were awarded the Leopold Conservation Award, given annually to farmers exemplary in voluntary conservation practices. Ray celebrated that achievement with his late wife, Susan; their kids, Ryan and wife Laura, and Kelsey and her husband Brandon, plus their two grandkids, who represent the farm's seventh generation.

As Leopold Award winners, Ray is matter-of-fact about his purpose on the farm: " We aim to take the resources the Lord has given us and try to make it a better place than when we found it," he says. ‡