Agricultural water records to keep

The water records worth keeping are the ones a person can point at later: this well, this delivery, this field, this water year. RowCodes stores them that way. A single ranch total with the sources mixed together is a number you cannot explain.

What goes in which column

Metered water is totaled as metered. A run with no meter but an entered flow rate is counted and labeled estimated, and it is never shown as metered. Water with neither is “not measured,” left out of the totals, and never shown as zero. Metered water can be looked up by the source that measured it. An estimated run stays labeled estimated so it is not later described as metered. Not measured is a word, not a zero, because a zero would say the farm used no water.

A district or contract delivery is logged as a delivery, not as groundwater, even when it irrigated the same field as a well. Rain is not pumped water. A soil probe is not a meter. Crop-health imagery is not a record of extraction. If a meter was down, the gap stays visible. If several wells share one meter, the total is the group’s, and the record should say so.

Field, water year, and allocation

You enter an allocation for each field and water year. Alerts fire at 75, 90, and 100 percent of that number. There is no per-well allocation in the product, and there is no custom percent. An alert tells you the field crossed one of those three marks. It does not order a valve shut. Stopping water is still a command a person sends, or a schedule already written. An alert is not an emergency stop.

Which field or zone received the water matters when the question is about a block, a tenant, or a crop that will not be in that field next year. The water year is the year the question will use. December and January belong to the year your district or agency uses, not to whatever a calendar app assumes. Applied water and a district order can sit next to each other so you can see both. They are not added into one number and mislabeled.

Extraction monitoring under SGMA

Groundwater extraction monitoring is how a pumper shows what a well took out of the basin. In California the method, the form, and whether you must do it are set by the basin and the groundwater sustainability agency, not by a single software template. A totalizing meter on a well is the clear case for that well. A monthly extraction file includes metered and estimated water, with estimated water in a separate “Estimated (acre-ft)” column. Whether your GSA or district will accept that file is their rule. RowCodes does not file it with the state.

Some plans describe methods other than a meter. Those are the agency’s methods. In the product, the only estimated water is a run with no meter and an entered flow rate, and it is labeled estimated. Nothing is filled in with zero to make a column look complete. The law itself is what SGMA is. The product page is SGMA water monitoring. Look the basin up on the SGMA Portal (opens in a new tab).

Who reads the file

The grower and the bookkeeper need the water year. The irrigator needs the field and the zone. Read-only access exists so someone can see the numbers without being able to open a valve. Live readings — flow, pressure, a pump that is on — are a different job from the season’s file. Water monitoring is the afternoon. Irrigation water management is the season. Both use the same three labels, so a gap in the live data does not become a zero in the year.

Evapotranspiration from CIMIS (opens in a new tab) and crop guidance from UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (opens in a new tab) help a person decide how long to run a set. They are not rows in the extraction file. A schedule that ran on time, with a shut-off that still happened if the radio dropped, is the operational record. The acre-feet are whatever was metered, estimated from a rate you entered, or left as not measured.

Questions

Do you file my groundwater report for me?

RowCodes organizes metered use and can make a monthly extraction file. You, your district, or your agency decide what must be submitted and in what form. The product does not file it.

Can an allocation alert shut a valve?

Alerts fire at 75, 90, and 100 percent of the allocation you entered for that field and water year. Stopping water is still a command a person sends, or a schedule already written.

RowCodes runs the set from the phone

RowCodes keeps metered, estimated, and not-measured water in separate labels, by field and water year. Log in to read a water year on a farm you already run. Installers sign in on their own login.