The Texas Alliance for Water Conservation is hosting its 10th Annual Water College from 9 a.m.to 3 p.m. on Wednesday (Jan. 24). Connecting today's producers and crop consultants with the latest in irrigation technology and research is the focus of the program at Lubbock Civic Center.

The event is cost free, lunch will be provided by Sorghum Checkoff and Texas Sorghum Producers, and coffee and donuts will be provided by High Plains Underground Water District. Three Certified Crop Advisor Continuing Education Units will be offered. No pre-registration is required. 

There will also be two new additions to this year's Water College: a Water & Agriculture Poster Contest and a Sustainable Agriculture Photo Contest. The entry deadlines for the poster and photo contests are on Jan. 10 and Jan.15, respectively.

Among the scheduled program highlights are:

• 9:00 a.m. - Welcome; Clint Krehbiel, Davis College of Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resources Dean
• 9:15 a.m. - Where's the Water At? A Hydrologist's Vew of the Ogallala; Amy Bush, Hydrologist, RMBJ Geo Inc.
• 9:45 a.m. - The Role Produced Water Can Play in Agriculture; Rusty Smith, Executive Director, Texas Produced Water Consortium
• 10:30 a.m. - Cotton Trust Protocol: How the Program Benefits Producers; Daren Abney, Executive Director, U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol
• 11:30 a.m. - Agricultural Water Research – Texas Tech Davis College Leading the Way; Krishna Jagadish, Thornton Distinguished Chair
• 1:30 p.m. - TAWC Field Site Data: What We Learned from the 2023 Growing Season; Paxton Peyton, Vice President, Commercial R&D, Goanna Ag
• 2:00 p.m. - Weather Outlook – What Can We Expect in 2024; Jennifer Puryear, Meteorologist, RMBJ Geo Inc.
• 2:30 p.m. - Water Is Our Future; Texas Tech Davis College Student Presentations

Based at Texas Tech and funded by a grant from the Texas Water Development Board, TAWC is a partnership of producers, technology firms, universities and government agencies working to extend the life of the largest subterranean aquifer in the United States. Stretching from the Texas panhandle in the south to the northern boundary of Nebraska, the Ogallala Aquifer lies beneath one of the most important agricultural regions in the United States.

The project uses on-farm demonstrations of cropping and livestock systems to compare the production practices, technologies, and systems that can maintain individual farm profitability while improving water use efficiency with a goal of extending the life of the Ogallala Aquifer while maintaining the viability of local farms and communities.

All production-related decisions are made by the producers involved in the project with field sites throughout the Texas High and Southern Plains. These sites represent the range of agricultural practices including monoculture cropping systems; crop rotations; no-till, limited-till and conventional tillage practices; a variety of water monitoring technolgies; and fully integrated crop and livestock systems.

CONTACT: Samantha Borgstedt, Project Director, Texas Alliance for Water Conservation Project, Texas Tech University at (806) 789-4177 or samantha.borgstedt@ttu.edu 

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