A group of Texas Water Ambassadors from high schools across the state toured the Texas Panhandle to gain knowledge and practice new leadership skills related to management of water.
The students toured a Demonstration Farm in Etter, to understand why conservation is crucial.
“It can be very difficult to water, the wind makes it awful to get down into the ground,” said Tara Easterling, a student from Dumas.
Easterling is one of 25 high school students who are members of the state’s water ambassador leadership academy. She and the other students spent the morning visiting a Demonstration Farm in Moore County to see how the largest users of ground-water ag producers and farmers can reduce waste and utilize run-off.
“Focusing on irrigation technologies as well as different agronomic strategies so that there are water use efficiencies and conserve more water,” said Dr. Jourdan Bell, agronomist with Texas A&M AgriLife.
The students learned how to keep the water in the soil and what is the most efficient way to get the water down several feet underground.
“For a long time they would spray water from the top of the irrigation systems now they run ropes down closer to the ground and it hits the soil faster and less chance of it evaporating or blowing away,” said Easterling.
“Water is a big part of our lives and not only just in agriculture but in city developments, it’s a shortage and be a problem one of these days,” said TexAnn Ralston, a student from Gruver. “They want to teach us how to conserve that so we can go home and teach other people how to conserve.”
Water from the Ogallala Aquifer is used primarily for agriculture in the Texas Panhandle but many towns and cities also rely on it for drinking as well.
“That’s why groundwater districts are so important in the state of Texas because they are regional entities that are focused on managing the resource in a way that’s necessary based on circumstances,” said Kirk Welch, assistant general manager of North Plains Groundwater Conservation District.
“These are going to be the kids not only moving into the industry or go into farming but also go into research,” said Bell. “It’s important they do have a very good understanding about water conservation agronomic production and really how we can tie the two together to be sustainable and profitable.”
After being at the Demonstration Farm in Etter, the ambassadors will start making their way back to Austin by stopping off in Quanah and then two more stops before the tour concludes on Friday.