The Ag Flag - A Simple Signal For When You've Irrigated Enough

My friend Vern Crawford -- who lives in Kern County, California, and is widely known as "Vern From Kern" -- attended the World Ag Expo in Tulare, California, this week and said the neatest new product he saw was a gizmo called the Ag Flag.

The idea is elegantly simply:

• Place the bright orange flag -- mounted on a lightweight, flexible metal rod -- into the ground toward the end of the field or irrigation run. Put it in a spot where you can turn off the flow and know that enough water is still moving along to finish the irrigation run.
• Just to the side of the flag, push a small stake into the ground, then pull down the flag and connect it and the stake with a paper strip supplied with the flag kit.
• When irrigation water reaches that point in the field, the moisture weakens the paper, which breaks apart, releasing the flag.
• The flag pops up above the canopy, signaling that water has reached that point. .

"I can see how this could save farmers from plenty of walking out in the field to see how far the water has moved," Vern said.

Here's a video from the company's web site:



Here's the company's web site.