Smart Agricultural Technology 1 (2021) 100016

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Smart Agricultural Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/atech

Identifying barriers to adoption of irrigation scheduling tools in Rio Grande

Basin
T. Allen Berthold1, Ali Ajaz1,∗, Taylor Olsovsky, Dhruva Kathuria
Texas Water Resources Institute, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, College Station 77843, TX, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Keywords: Irrigated agriculture in the Rio Grande region faces water management related challenges due to climate vari-
Precision agriculture ability and rise in non-agricultural water demand. Scientific irrigation scheduling (SIS) tools allow growers to
Efficient irrigation management optimize the water use and conserve water by making informed decisions. Nevertheless, multiple technological
Water conservation
and economic barriers could slow down the adoption of these technologies. This study investigates the barriers
Irrigation survey
to adoption of SIS methods in the U.S. part of Rio Grande basin by getting irrigators’ perspective and outlines
Soil moisture sensors
the factors that influence adoption. Multiple adoption barriers are listed, and the most important ones are lack of
access to weather data, uncertainty about future water availability, cost effectiveness of technologies, reliability
of weather data, lack of availability of irrigation scheduling tools, and risk of reduced yield. Factors that influ-
ence the growers’ decision to adopt SIS are also explored, which are quality of land, yield, water use efficiency,
and water availability for future generations. Age, education, and years involved in agriculture may also govern
the knowledge and adoption of SIS methods. The results of this study provide guidance to policy makers and
extension experts to strengthen water conservation efforts in Rio Grande basin and other comparable regions in
the world.

1. Introduction
Irrigated agriculture is the largest consumer of fresh water supplies
across the globe. The United States (U.S.) has the world’s third largest
acreage under irrigation, 22.4 Mha, and in terms of agricultural water
use, the country ranks fourth with 176.21 km3 of annual withdrawals
[15]. There are 20 water resource regions (WRR) in the U.S. that are
based on the major drainage areas of the country, and the Rio Grande
is located among Southern WRR. The Rio Grande is a transboundary
river that receives its water both from the U.S. and Mexico, and the
latter shares almost half of the watershed area (Fig. 1). On the U.S.
side, it flows from Southern Colorado through New Mexico and Texas
and drains into Gulf of Mexico. The total area of Rio Grande basin is
approximately 924,300 km2 (92.43 Mha) [29]. The upper reach of the
river receives majority of its water from snow melt, whereas the runoff
accumulation in the lower reach is mostly due to summer monsoon.
According to U.S. Department of Agriculture [56], the total crop-
land in the Rio Grande region (U.S. side) is 631,284 ha, out of which
364,450 ha is irrigated. Approximately, 53% irrigation is conducted us-
ing groundwater, and off-farm surface water use is 44%. The surface
water governance in the basin is based on inter-state and international
treaties, and uncertainty in the availability of surface water due to re-
curring dry periods poses challenges to water planning and management
[49]. Prolonged droughts in the region increase the reliance on ground-
water to offset the reduced surface water supplies. Also, the irrigation
water demand increases due to elevated crop water requirement under
drought-induced higher potential evapotranspiration (ET). Historically
in the Rio Grande region, droughts have caused considerable decline in
groundwater levels e.g., drought period between 2002 and 2015 in the
headwaters region and 2003-2014 in middle Rio Grande prompted in-
tensive pumping [7]. In addition, climate change will give rise to more
frequent droughts and several studies have predicted decline (25% to
50%) in the Rio Grande flows by the next century [9,36].
States in the Rio Grande region have developed regional and state
level water plans to deal with future challenges, i.e., population growth
and climate change. New Mexico’s state water plan, for regions over-
lapping Rio Grande basin, shows an annual administrative (normally
available) versus drought water supply deficit range of 0.01-0.26 km3
by 2030, which is mainly due to greater uncertainty associated with
surface water availability [46]. In Texas, the regional water plan (RWP)
of Rio Grande water planning area anticipates an annual supply and de-
mand deficit of 0.84 km3 by year 2030 (Texas Water Development Board
[54], 2021). Also, in both states, the deficit is expected to enlarge based
on the decadal estimations made untill 2060. Annual irrigation demand

∗
Corresponding author at: 578 John Kimbrough Blvd., College Station, TX, 77843, USA.
E-mail addresses: ali.ajaz@ag.tamu.edu, aliajazch@gmail.com (A. Ajaz).
1
These authors contributed equally to the manuscript

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atech.2021.100016
Received 5 June 2021; Received in revised form 17 August 2021; Accepted 9 October 2021
2772-3755/© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
T.A. Berthold, A. Ajaz, T. Olsovsky et al.
for New Mexico was approximately 4 km3 in 2020, which does not fluc-
tuate considerably under low and high growth planning scenarios by
2060. However, for Texas, the overall irrigation demand is expected to
decrease in future, from 11.6 km3 in 2020 to 9.9 km3 in 2060. This de-
crease can be attributed to factors such as urbanization of agricultural
lands, higher domestic demands due to rising population, costly pump-
ing due to decline in groundwater levels, and expected improvement in
irrigation water use efficiency. The reduction in irrigation demand in
Texas’ Rio Grande RWP, would be 21.2% by 2060 [54]. This shows the
need of better water management and technology in the Rio Grande re-
gion to prepare the irrigation sector to sustain under future challenges.
Several best management practices (BMPs) have been suggested for
optimizing irrigation water use in the Rio Grande region. Advanced or
scientific irrigation scheduling (SIS) is one of the important BMPs that
could play a significant role in the sustainability dynamics of Rio Grande
[55]. Irrigation scheduling can be simply defined as the process used to
decide the appropriate amount of water to be applied at a certain time to
maintain healthy plant growth for achieving a planned crop yield [52].
Irrigation can be scheduled by following simple methods, e.g., visually
assessing the crop, feeling soil for moisture, etc., whereas SIS involves
data, measurements, and estimations, e.g., precipitation and ET data, in-
situ soil moisture and plant canopy temperature sensing, remote sensing
of crop water use and stress, crop water use modeling, etc.
Adoption of SIS in a region can lead to considerable water sav-
ings and improved crop yield and quality [1]. For example, irrigation
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Smart Agricultural Technology 1 (2021) 100016
Fig. 1. Rio Grande river and tributaries
(US And Mexico).
scheduling based on probabilistic rainfall forecasts could save 11% to
26.9% water [2]. Zhou et al [65] demonstrated 35% saving of irrigation
water by using soil moisture sensors under micro-irrigation. Also, posi-
tive impact on crop growth and quality was noted by Nam et al [45] as
a result of maintaining the root zone moisture at a certain level using
soil moisture sensors. According to USDA [57], only 1.5% farms in the
Rio Grande region use some type of sensing device or daily ET reports to
decide when to irrigate, whereas 48% farms rely on conditions of crop
and feel of soil, and about 10% farms initiate irrigation when a neigh-
bor start irrigating. Based on this information, it can be inferred that
farmers in the region either lack the capacity or resolve to use SIS. Any
of these factors could be a hindrance for moving towards sustainable
irrigated agriculture. Therefore, it is important to find out the barriers
to adoption of SIS tools in the Rio Grande basin.
There are a few studies that have looked into the barriers that dis-
courage the adoption of SIS methods. Taghvaeian et al. [52] highlighted
that installation and maintenance cost of the equipment and lack of tech-
nical support for end-users are some of the major challenges being faced
by the growers in U.S. Risk of yield reduction, field limitations, reluc-
tance from landlord to share the costs, uncertainty about future water
availability, unsure about continuation of farming, and more time re-
quired for management were found as considerable barriers to adoption
of SIS practices in U.S. by Fan and McCann [14]. Leib et al. [34] con-
ducted surveys in Washington, U.S., to analyze the adoption of ET and
soil moisture sensor-based irrigation scheduling. One of the major find-
T.A. Berthold, A. Ajaz, T. Olsovsky et al.
ings of this study was that such adoption of technology can be coupled
with the farm size as growers with large farms were more inclined to
use sensors and crop-water use information for irrigation scheduling.
Also, they found that more high value crops i.e., onions, potatoes, wine
grapes, and sugar beets, received advanced scheduling services in com-
parison to small grains and fodder crops. This suggests that profits and
crop water sensitivity could become a factor for deciding on the use of
SIS tools. A similar regional study from Australia [30] identified finan-
cial constraints as the largest barrier to the adoption of new technologies
in irrigation including scheduling and discussed the need of confidence
building measures to convince growers for making investment in tech-
nology. Very few studies have investigated the barriers to adoption of
SIS tools in Rio Grande Basin. For example, Ward et al. [62] explored
the barriers to water conservation in different parts of the Rio Grande
Basin and listed water-saving incentives, issues with water rights and
water transfers, and ease of using groundwater amid reduced surface
water supplies as some of the main barriers. However, this study did
not particularly focus on reasons that hinder the adoption of SIS. Also,
the interstate and transboundary water agreements in Rio Grande Basin
make the region unique in terms of water management [63], and SIS
adoption focused studies conducted in other parts of the world may be
less applicable here. Hence, there exist a need to thoroughly investigate
the adoption barriers for SIS in Rio Grande Basin as well as the factors
that influence the adoption decisions.
Understanding the barriers to adoption of SIS tools could provide an
insight into the overall propensity of the irrigators’ community for em-
bracing the new technology. Since the diffusion and adoption of technol-
ogy is a complex phenomenon that involves both sociological and tech-
nical domains [48], it is important that the agricultural water policy-
makers and water experts have the tools to decipher the socio-technical
configuration embedded in a particular region’s growers community
[41]. Information on factors affecting irrigators’ decision-making pro-
cess can be pivotal for promoting the adoption of innovations made in
optimizing agricultural water use.
Based on the future needs of the irrigated agriculture in the Rio
Grande region where irrigation sector needs to adapt with the declining
water supplies, urbanization and population rise, and climate change, it
is important to develop a comprehensive understanding of the barriers
that slow down the adoption of SIS. The aim of this study was to get the
irrigators perspective on the barriers to adoption of SIS tools in the Rio
Grande region. The objectives were (i) to determine irrigators’ familiar-
ity and usage of different methods for deciding when to irrigate; (ii) to
assess irrigators’ level of agreement on the extent of potential factors
being a barrier to adoption of SIS tools; (iii) to assess irrigators’ level
of agreement on the extent of potential factors influencing the adop-
tion of SIS tools. The results of this study provide guidelines to exten-
sion experts, researchers, agriculture water policymakers, and industry
to optimize the use of water resources and promote precision agricul-
ture in the region. Also, this study can be considered as a benchmark
for future planning of water-conservation focused incentive programs
by states and federal agencies.
2. Methodology
Data collected for this study was through the administration of a
mailed survey. To develop the survey, questions related to general farm
information and basic characteristics of growers were adapted from
Frasier et al. [16]. Growers were inquired about their familiarity with
different irrigation scheduling methods. In addition, factors that could
be potential barriers to adoption (e.g., reliability and access to weather
data, cost-effectiveness of technology, field characteristics, etc.) were
listed in survey questions with option to choose a level of agreement
ranging between strongly agree and strongly disagree. Similarly, a ques-
tion containing list of factors that influence growers’ decision to adopt
advanced irrigation scheduling technologies (e.g., quality of land, wa-
ter use efficiency, pumping cost, etc.) was added in the survey to know
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Smart Agricultural Technology 1 (2021) 100016
the level of agreement of respondents. Besides adoption barriers, infor-
mation on factors influencing decision-making was sought to assess the
motivation of growers towards adoption. Questions including aforemen-
tioned factors were mainly adapted from Schaible and Aillery [50], and
additional questions were developed based on discussions with agricul-
ture extension staff and growers [47]. Overall, the survey contained 18
questions across 7 pages (Survey questionnaire available in supplemen-
tary information).
To develop list of contacts for this study, a Freedom of Information
Request was made to USDA Farm Service Agency to gain Farm Payment
Files from 2013 - 2017 [58], which is the list of agricultural producers
who have received subsidy payments during aforementioned years for
every county in the U.S. Names and addresses of subsidy payment recip-
ients whose zip code fell within the boundary of the Rio Grande Basin
on the U.S. side and within the states of Texas and New Mexico were
selected to serve as the study population. Of this population, a simple
random sample of 1,500 individuals were selected and addresses were
validated.
To administer the mailed survey, a modified Dillman et al. [10] Tai-
lored Design Method was used where a pre-notice postcard was mailed
on August 3, 2020, followed by a survey packet on August 10, 2020,
followed by a reminder postcard on August 17, 2020, and a final survey
packet on August 31, 2020. Of the 1,500 mailed, 96 were undeliverable,
310 were returned resulting in a 22% response rate and 77 responses
were usable. It should be noted that at the time of administering this
survey, Covid-19 had impacted the delivery and return of the mailed
survey as surveys were delivered as late as December 7, 2020.
Data retrieved from the responses was analyzed to quantify the re-
spondents’ basic characteristics, irrigation methods used by respondents
and their familiarity with various irrigation scheduling techniques, SIS
adoption barriers, and factors influencing the adoption. Also, statistical
tools were used to find trends and relationships in the data. Principal
component analysis (PCA) was conducted to estimate the interrelation-
ships between the uses of different irrigation scheduling methods by
survey participants. PCA allows simplifying large set of variables and
breaks the interrelations in data into multiple orthogonal components.
PCA has been previously employed in studies focusing on the conserva-
tion practices in agriculture using survey data (e.g., [4,24]). Stepwise
regression analysis was conducted to assess the relative importance of
variables [61] including education, years involved in agricultural pro-
duction, and farm-based income for the overall knowledge and use of SIS
methods. Based on the level of familiarity and use of the SIS methods,
knowledge and adoption score was assigned to each survey participant,
respectively. Koech et al. [30] also used stepwise regression analysis
for studying barriers to adoption of irrigation technologies in Australia.
Minitab 17 Statistical Software [40] was used to perform PCA and step-
wise regression analysis under default settings.
3. Results
3.1. Respondents’ basic characteristics
Response to gender question in the survey was provided by 71 agri-
cultural producers out of which 58 were male, 3 were female, and 10
respondents preferred not to mention their gender. 57% of the respon-
dents belonged to the age group of 51-70 years, 25% were 71+, 3%
and 1% were from 31-50 years and 18-30 years age group, respectively,
whereas 2% respondents did not answer this question. In terms of ed-
ucation, 42% of the growers who participated in the survey had a 4-
years degree (Fig. 2), 18% went to some college (post-secondary under-
graduate education), 16% had high school (higher secondary education)
diploma, and 10% and 4% of the respondents had masters and PhD de-
grees, respectively. 55% of the growers had white ethnicity, 30% were
Hispanics, 3% were American Indians, and 13% did not provide this
information.
T.A. Berthold, A. Ajaz, T. Olsovsky et al.
Fig. 2. Education level of respondents from Rio Grande Region.
A large number of responding farmers (38%) had 41-60 years asso-
ciation with agricultural sector along with 8% who had spent 61+ years
in farming (Fig. 3a). 25% were involved in agricultural production for
26-40 years, whereas 11% and 1% of the respondents of the survey were
associated for 11-25 years and 0-10 years with agriculture, respectively.
80-100% household income of 26% growers was linked with agricul-
tural production, which was followed by 24% farmers whose incomes
was 1-20% dependent on farming (Fig. 3b). 18% growers had 21-40%
income coming from agriculture sector, for 15% it was 61-80%, 8% had
41-60%, and 10% participants’ opted not to respond.
Major crops grown and irrigated by the survey participants were
cotton (Gossypium hirsutum), maize (Zea mays), wheat (Triticum aes-
tivum), pecans (Carya illinoinensis), Citrus, sugarcane (Saccharum of-
ficinarum), and alfalfa (Medicago sativa) (Fig. 4), which consume the
largest water share in the Rio Grande basin [31]. 51% growers reported
growing one crop on their farm, 21% had two crops, 16% had three,
7% had four, 3% had five, whereas 1% managed to grow six crops on
their farms. Average acreage cultivated by the respondents was approx-
imately 206 ha with a range of 0.1 ha and 2,388 ha. Distribution of the
farm size in the survey was non-normal and it was negatively skewed
(skewness = 3.19). First quartile was 10.12 ha, median was 34.1 ha, and
third quartile was 161.9 ha.
3.2. Irrigation methods and irrigators’ familiarity with various scheduling
techniques
Two most common methods for irrigating crops reported by the re-
spondents were flexible plastic pipe with openings for furrows (com-
monly known as poly pipe), 27%, and any other gravity-based methods,
33%, (e.g., conventional flood irrigation using field ditches and furrows)
(Fig. 5). This was followed by the center pivot (11%) which is mostly
installed where groundwater is available. The survey also covered pro-
ducers who use surface and subsurface drip irrigation, and a few survey
participants picked multiple options, for example, center pivot, other
sprinklers (e.g., micro sprinklers, solid set sprinklers, spray jets), siphon
tubes, and any other gravity-based methods.
Precise application of irrigation water involves both delivery meth-
ods and techniques to decide when to irrigate. Survey participants were
asked about their familiarity and use of different methods for determin-
ing when to irrigate. Condition of crop and feel of soil were two major
conventional methods with which 76.8% and 60.8% respondents were
very familiar, respectively (Fig. 6a, b). 81.3% respondents frequently
used condition of crop to schedule irrigation and 45.5% frequently used
feel of the soil. Scheduled water delivery (52.2%) and calendar sched-
ule (38.6%) were next with which irrigators were very familiar with,
and their frequent use was reported by 36.4% and 25% respondents, re-
spectively. Commercial scheduling services, computer simulations, and
plant moisture sensing devices were ranked lowest by the survey par-
ticipants in terms of familiarity and use as 89.7%, 84.2%, and 76.9%
growers were not familiar and 91.5%, 90.9%, and 89.4% never used
these techniques, respectively. Non-familiarity and non-usage was fol-
lowed by media reports on daily ET (71.8% and 87%), infield weather
4
Smart Agricultural Technology 1 (2021) 100016
stations (71.8% and 78.7%), and soil moisture sensing devices (57.5%
and 76.65), respectively.
3.3. Barriers to adoption of SIS methods
According to the survey participants, the two largest barriers to adop-
tion of SIS methods were lack of easy access to weather data and un-
certainty about future water availability, as 37% and 35% respondent
strongly agreed with these factors, respectively (Figure S1). This was
followed by low cost-effectiveness of technologies (33% strongly agree),
unreliable weather data (33% strongly agree), and lack of availability
of SIS tools in the area (31% strongly agree). 37% of producers some-
what agreed that improvements or adoption will not reduce the expenses
enough to cover the installation cost, and 28% producers viewed risk of
reduced yield and poor quality of crop with the same level of agreement
as a potential barrier to adopt SIS techniques. 39% survey respondents
slightly agreed that excessive nature of training requirements for new
irrigation scheduling systems can be a barrier for adoption, whereas
29% participants had a slight agreement on either irrigation scheduling
tools related information not being presented in easily understandable
way or not receiving enough information to persuade them for adop-
tion. Table 1 provides an overview of the response of participants and
summarizes the average and standard deviation of level of agreement
on adoption barriers.
3.4. Factors influencing the adoption of SIS methods
Four major factors influencing the adoption of SIS were maintaining
the quality of land along with producing more on the existing acreage
(68% survey participants strongly agreed), becoming more water effi-
cient (66% strongly agreed), and improving or maintaining water avail-
ability for future generations (61% strongly agreed) (Figure S2). Under
somewhat level of agreement, 37% growers picked increasing the value
of land as an important factor that influences the SIS adoption, which
was followed by participating in government financial programs to off-
set cost of implementation (30% somewhat agreed). Table 2 provides an
overview of the respondent’s level of agreement on influencing factors
and summarizes the average and standard deviation.
3.5. Principal component analysis of data on irrigation scheduling methods
Principal component analysis was conducted to understand the
trends and relationship between different irrigation scheduling meth-
ods being used by the growers. First four principal components repre-
sented almost 70% of the total variance. The first principal component
(PC1) represented 29.6% variance, and it was moderately correlated
with plant moisture sensing, computer simulations, and infield weather
stations (Table 3). PC2 represented 14.9% variance and it was strongly
correlated with in turn and calendar schedule and negative values ex-
isted for soil moisture sensors. PC3 represented 13.4% variance and it
was strongly correlated with feel of soil and moderate correlation ex-
isted for nearby weather station. PC4 represented 11% variance and it
was noticeably correlated with nearby weather station, whereas neg-
ative values existed for condition of crop, feel of soil, soil and plant
moisture sensing.
3.6. Variables impacting growers’ knowledge and adoption of SIS
techniques
Stepwise regression analysis was conducted with adoption score,
knowledge score, and sum of adoption and knowledge score as response
variables, and years involved in agriculture, income percentage linked to
agriculture, age, and education of the respondents as predictors. The re-
sults showed that income percentage linked to agriculture was removed
from the model in all three analyses (Table 4) that refers to a rare contri-
bution of income in knowledge and adoption of SIS. Age and education
T.A. Berthold, A. Ajaz, T. Olsovsky et al.
Fig. 3. (a) Years involved in agricultural production (b) Percentage of household income that comes from agricultural production.
Fig. 4. Crops grown and irrigated by the survey participants.
played an important role to determine the adoption of SIS methods with
adjusted coefficient of determination (R2 ) 27.82%. The knowledge on
SIS tools of the survey respondents was markedly associated with the
years involved in agriculture and age (Adj R2 = 13.92%), whereas for
the sum of the knowledge and adoption score, age and education were
considerable predictors (Adj R2 = 18.98%).
4. Discussion
Results of survey participants’ familiarity and use of different irri-
gation scheduling methods imply that a majority of farmers tend to
use non-scientific methods. Similar to the selection of irrigation appli-
cation method, adoption of SIS technique is also dependent on sev-
eral economic, technological, field, and water supply related factors
[25] that could be associated with the barriers to technology adoption.
Main barriers to adoption of SIS methods identified in this survey con-
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Smart Agricultural Technology 1 (2021) 100016
curred well with the ones highlighted by other researchers. For example,
Frisvold and Murugesan [17] emphasized the importance of weather
data to growers for agricultural decision-making and discussed that pro-
ducer are less likely to use web-based data directly, most probably due
to complexities in data and its retrieval process. The aforementioned
study also argued that the growers would be more receptive to flow of
repackaged or simple data from extension agents and irrigation districts.
This suggests that in the context of Rio Grande region, by providing
farmer-friendly online data and data products [22], such data access
barriers could be alleviated. Currently, the weather and ET networks
in Texas and New Mexico (e.g., texaset.tamu.edu, weather.nmsu.edu)
lack grower oriented weather data products. A good example of devel-
oping agriculture weather focused products for producers is Oklahoma
Mesonet [38] which offers tools like farm monitor, crop specific heat
units calculator, irrigation planner, and daily ET maps.
T.A. Berthold, A. Ajaz, T. Olsovsky et al. Smart Agricultural Technology 1 (2021) 100016

Fig. 5. Methods of irrigation used by the survey participants.

Table 1
Barriers to adoption of SIS methods identified by survey participants.

Barriers n M SD

Weather data is unreliable 49 2.43 1.38

Uncertainty about future water availability 51 2.55 1.70
Technologies are not cost effective 49 2.63 1.59
Improvements will not reduce costs enough to cover installation costs 54 2.74 1.56
No scheduling tools are available in the area 51 2.80 1.77
Cannot finance improvements 53 2.83 1.57
No easily accessible weather data 49 2.84 1.81
Have not received enough information to get me interested 52 2.85 1.56
Information isn’t presented in a way that is easy to understand 48 2.85 1.50
Physical field characteristics limit adoption 52 3.04 1.61
Training requirements for new systems are excessive 46 3.15 1.49
Risk of poorer crop quality 50 3.22 1.63
Risk of reduced yield 50 3.26 1.70
Not sure how to get information on systems that best fit my operation 52 3.27 1.65
Landlord will not share the cost of improvements 41 3.32 1.88
Water savings won’t be enough to make a difference in the big picture 52 3.38 1.73
Investigating improvements is not a priority 54 3.39 1.65
Will not be farming long enough to justify improvements 52 3.44 1.79
Fear of loss of water rights if I use less water 51 3.80 1.95
Not interested in participating in government financial assistance programs 51 4.00 1.81

Note. n = number of responses, M = mean, SD = standard deviation, Scale: 1 = Strongly Agree,

2 = Somewhat Agree, 3 = Slightly Agree, 4 = Slightly Disagree, 5 = Somewhat Disagree,
6 = Strongly Disagree.

Unreliability in weather data was identified as another barrier that
hinders the adoption of irrigation scheduling methods. Agricultural
weather data in terms of reliability can be divided into two categories.
One is near-real-time data and the other is forecast data, and the dy-
namics of their accuracy needs to be discussed separately [12]. Near-
real-time data is usually based on the weather station measurements
and its accuracy for an agricultural producer mainly depends on the
spatial density of the instruments and type of variables. For example,
in case of precipitation either end-users will look at the data from the
nearest weather station or an interpolated value will be available for a
particular location, yet the reliability of this data can be questioned due
to spatial heterogeneity of precipitation [8]. On the other hand, temper-
ature, relative humidity, and wind speed data originating from nearby
weather stations or through interpolation would have relatively higher
certainty, provided there is a reasonable spatial density of the sensors.
The same applies for ET that is calculated using the aforementioned
variables [59].
Weather forecast data is mostly based on statistical models that pro-
cess the data from multiple regional weather networks to make daily
and weekly prediction reports. The element of uncertainty is an inte-
gral part of forecasts that usually increases with the lead time and it is
important that forecast providers add precision coefficients or accuracy

6
T.A. Berthold, A. Ajaz, T. Olsovsky et al. Smart Agricultural Technology 1 (2021) 100016

Fig. 6. (a) Familiarity with irrigation scheduling method (b) Use of irrigation scheduling methods by survey participants.

Table 2
Factors that influence adoption of SIS technologies.

Influencing factors N M SD

Maintaining the quality of my land 50 1.42 0.70

Producing more on the acreage that I have available 50 1.42 0.67
Becoming more water efficient 50 1.44 0.67
Improving or maintaining water availability for future generations 49 1.51 0.71
Increasing the value of my land 49 1.67 0.77
Freeing up water for other users 49 2.00 1.21
Seeing other landowners successfully using the practice 48 2.02 1.31
Reducing overall pumping costs 51 2.18 1.53
Participating in govt financial assist prog- offset cost of implementation 50 2.20 1.11
Adopting irrigation technologies have a high return on investment 47 2.70 1.23
Receiving loans that help ease the cost of implementation 48 2.77 1.31
Adopting irrigation technologies are inexpensive 48 3.52 1.81

Note. Scale: 1 = Strongly Agree, 2 = Somewhat Agree, 3 = Slightly Agree, 4 = Slightly

Disagree, 5 = Somewhat Disagree, 6 = Strongly Disagree.

7
T.A. Berthold, A. Ajaz, T. Olsovsky et al. Smart Agricultural Technology 1 (2021) 100016

Table 3 and return on investment. They found that growers with abundant water
Eigen analysis of the correlation matrix. supplies are more likely to invest in technology whereas growers with
PC1 PC2 PC3 PC4 scarce supplies would wait until extreme weather events (i.e., droughts)
push the return on investment considerably higher than the cost. Sub-
Eigenvalue 3.56 1.79 1.60 1.32
sidies could also be helpful for growers to overcome such barriers as
Proportion 0.30 0.15 0.13 0.11
Cumulative 0.30 0.45 0.58 0.69 discussed by Heumesser et al. [26] who investigated the climate change
Variable induced precipitation uncertainty and irrigation technology adoption
Condition of crop -0.26 0.31 0.30 -0.32 trends.
Feel of soil 0.01 0.24 0.52 -0.34
Cost effectiveness of SIS technologies and risk of not being able to
Soil moisture sensor 0.28 -0.25 0.17 -0.46
Commercial scheduling services 0.25 0.22 -0.36 0.04
cover the installation cost were picked among the major barriers of
Media report on daily ET 0.37 0.04 0.34 -0.04 adoption by the respondents of this study. Also, risk of reduced yield and
Infield weather station 0.43 0.11 -0.08 -0.09 poor crop quality were among the barriers accentuated by the growers.
Nearby weather station 0.14 0.28 0.42 0.52 The cost of efficient irrigation scheduling tools or services would vary
In turn -0.03 0.59 -0.18 0.04
with the level of accuracy and ease of operation required/ afforded by
Calendar schedule -0.05 0.52 -0.26 -0.30
Computer simulation 0.47 0.05 -0.14 0.11 the grower. For example, installing one low-cost soil moisture or plant
Plant moisture sensing 0.44 -0.03 -0.07 -0.24 moisture sensor (manual data retrieval) in the field versus having mul-
Crop consultant 0.17 0.11 0.24 0.36 tiple wireless cloud-based sensors, integrated with online interface and
supported by remote sensing-based data, would have different price
tags. Therefore, to make these technologies cost effective, conducting
levels to the data being made available to growers to inform them about need assessment based on yield goals, and seeking expert opinion is im-
the reliability [33]. portant.
Survey participants viewed uncertainty about future water availabil- Risks of yield decline, possibly due to under-irrigation with impre-
ity as one of the important barriers to adoption of SIS. Ward et al. cise irrigation scheduling method could prevent growers’ adoption, and
[62] also discussed the uncertainty of water availability as a barrier to if the water supplies are not limited, growers would rather over-irrigate
water conservation efforts in terms of water rights adjudication in Rio the high value crops [44]. Gaps in knowledge on local crop coefficients,
Grande region in New Mexico. Growers tend to be less interested in mov- soil-water characteristics, and issues with higher levels of salinity and
ing towards advanced method or technology when they are not sure how clay and site-specific sensor calibration may induce errors in crop wa-
their water supplies would fluctuate in future. A comparable argument ter requirement calculations and soil moisture estimates [5,20,64] that
was presented by Carey and Zilberman [3] as they studied the mod- could cause crop water stress. Adoption of technology with respect to
ern technology adoption in irrigation in the framework of water market production uncertainty was explored by Koundouri et al. [32] and their

Table 4
Results from stepwise regression analysis (Default 𝛼 = 0.15).

(a) Adoption Score versus Years involved in agriculture, income percentage linked to agriculture, age, education
Analysis of Variance
Source DF Adj SS Adj MS F-Value P-Value
Age 2 163.76 81.881 10.93 0
Education 5 82.97 16.594 2.22 0.072
Error 40 299.58 7.49
Lack-of-Fit 30 259.91 8.664 2.18 0.096
Pure Error 10 39.67 3.967
Total 47 487.67
Model Summary
S R-sq R-sq(adj)
2.7367 38.57% 27.82%
(b) Knowledge Score versus Years involved in agriculture, income percentage linked to agriculture, age, education
Analysis of Variance
Source DF Adj SS Adj MS F-Value P-Value
Years 4 170.8 42.69 2.12 0.096
Age 2 120.1 60.03 2.98 0.062
Error 40 806.1 20.15
Lack-of-Fit 30 488.4 16.28 0.51 0.923
Pure Error 10 317.7 31.77
Total 46 1076.9
Model Summary
S R-sq R-sq(adj)
4.4891 25.15% 13.92%
(c) Knowledge + Adoption Score versus Years involved in agriculture, income percentage linked to agriculture, age, Education
Analysis of Variance
Source DF Adj SS Adj MS F-Value P-Value
Age 2 667.7 333.84 7.53 0.002
Education 5 399.3 79.85 1.8 0.134
Error 42 1863 44.36
Lack-of-Fit 32 1337 41.78 0.79 0.706
Pure Error 10 526 52.6
Total 49 2682.9
Model Summary
S R-sq R-sq(adj)
6.66018 30.56% 18.98%

Note. Degree of freedom (DF), Adjusted sums of squares (Adj SS), Adj mean squares (Adj MS), P-Value = 0.15 (Default),
Standard error (S), Coefficient of determination (R-sq).

8
T.A. Berthold, A. Ajaz, T. Olsovsky et al.
results showed that growers are more likely to adopt technology when it
is coupled with increased profits in comparison to downside yield uncer-
tainty. Galioto et al. [19] discussed that growers could adopt new meth-
ods to schedule irrigation to mitigate the impacts of long-term climate
variability on yield; however, such adoption requires adequate avail-
ability of information.
Survey participants picked multiple factors that influence the adop-
tion of SIS methods and quality of land was ranked first. One of the main
reasons for quality of land being at the top of the major factors could be
the enhanced understanding of the growers about the adverse impacts
of mismanaged irrigation on the farms that could cause root zone salin-
ity problems in the long term [11]. Please note that salinity is among
the major water quality issues in Rio Grande region, and it is caused
mainly due to agricultural runoff, wastewater treatment plants, and ge-
ological formation of the basin, and because of surface‐groundwater in-
teractions, groundwater quality is also deteriorated [27]. SIS adoption
provides ways to mitigate the impact of saline water on crop yield while
also reducing salt accumulation in the root zone [39].
Producing more on the existing acreage was also among the top fac-
tors that influence the adoption of SIS. As discussed earlier, yield im-
provements are usually a driving factor for growers to invest in tech-
nology. Potential of improving pecan yields in Rio Grande region was
demonstrated by Ganjegunte and Clark [21] using soil moisture sen-
sors. Enciso et al. [13] utilized soil moistures sensors to show that better
yields and crop quality for onions were obtainable in Rio Grande Valley
of Texas when soil moisture was kept above a certain threshold.
Influence factors such as achieving high water use efficiency and im-
proving or maintaining water availability for future generations can be
linked with the idea of sustainable irrigated agriculture. Data driven de-
cisions to determine the timing of irrigation discourages over-irrigation
and even less than 100% crop ET equivalent amount of water could
be optimized to achieve good crop yield, for example, managing deficit
irrigation with the help of soil moisture sensors. Both natural and arti-
ficial storage of water such as aquifers and dams could be harnessed for
longer time periods if the growers collectively decide to employ mod-
ern irrigation scheduling methods. Also, additional economic benefits
can be associated with sustainable agricultural practices as there is an
increasing demand of sustainably sourced products in global agri-food
supply chains [53]. This provides an opportunity to farmers, adopting
SIS techniques, to sell their crops at premium prices [6].
PCA helped understand the interrelationships between the uses of
different irrigation scheduling methods by survey participants. PC1 sug-
gested that the use of plant moisture sensing, computer simulations, and
infield weather stations might vary together, and increase in one’s usage
could step up the adoption of the remaining ones (Table 3). Also, the
combination of these methods could improve the overall reliability of
irrigation scheduling. For example, computer simulations for irrigation
scheduling calculations would work better if infield weather station data
were used as input, and the output from the simulations can be assim-
ilated with plant moisture sensing to improve the overall performance
[23]. The negative values of condition of crop show that its use tend to
decrease as growers move towards SIS.
The interrelationship in PC2 hinted towards those growers who rely
on delivery from irrigation district and water is usually applied at critical
crop stages, and therefore, they are probably less inclined towards the
use of sensors as the farmers do not have much control on canal water
supplies unless they store water on their farm (e.g., reservoirs for drip ir-
rigation systems). PC3 indicated that growers that make decisions based
on feel of soil, they might also be interested in checking the information
from a nearby weather station to be certain about their irrigation tim-
ing and amount related decision. With the information present in PC4,
it could be inferred that when growers have access to information from
weather stations, visual methods to decide on irrigation take a back seat.
Furthermore, growers would possibly not prioritize their investments in
in-situ sensors when they have access to nearby weather station. Sui
and Vories [51] compared the irrigation scheduling based on weather
9
Smart Agricultural Technology 1 (2021) 100016
station data and soil moisture sensors and found that growers would be
reluctant to adopt soil moisture sensors mainly due to initial investment,
recurring service charges, and possibility of sensor damage in field.
The R2 values estimated in stepwise regression analysis (27.82%,
13.92%, 18.98%) (Table 4) were lower than the values estimated in
a comparable study conducted in Queensland, Austraila [30] (38%) in
which the researchers analyzed the impact of several predictors on farm-
ers’ perception on current knowledge and understanding of irrigation as
dependent variable using step wise regression. The current study par-
ticularly focused on irrigation scheduling methods in comparison to
broader adoption studies for irrigation technology, hence the regression
models are likely to be more susceptible to any potential noise in data.
Low R2 is tolerable in studies when the model is not aimed for making
any future predictions [43]. Also, smaller R2 hint towards significant
trend amid high variability in data [18].
Despite the low R2 values, the impact of age, education, and years in-
volved in agriculture on growers’ knowledge and adoption of SIS meth-
ods corresponded well with the studies focusing on adoption of tech-
nology in agriculture. For example, Lichtenberg et al. [35] argued that
growers with higher education level are more receptive to sensor-based
irrigation scheduling. Education levels of growers were found closely re-
lated to the adoption intensity of improved irrigation scheduling meth-
ods by Wang et al. [60]. The aforementioned studies discussed older
age of grower as a dissuading factor to invest in technology for irriga-
tion scheduling, whereas the stepwise regression analysis in this study
revealed an opposite trend. This could be partly due to the fact that older
growers usually have a greater social capital in terms of strong network
in irrigators’ community that plays a positive role in adoption of irri-
gation technology [28]. On the other hand, young growers with better
familiarity of technology could be more likely to use SIS methods but
this might not have a notable impact on the overall adoption of modern
irrigation methods as May et al. [37] found that young growers with
higher education in U.S. are less interested to work on farms because of
better off-farm job opportunities.
5. Conclusion
Irrigation in Rio Grande region faces challenges due to uncertainty
in surface water supplies and decline in groundwater levels. Also, in-
creasing water demand from municipal sector poses a threat to future
water availability for irrigated agriculture in the region. SIS methods
offer solutions to optimize the irrigation water use and allow growers
to make informed decisions related to irrigation amount and frequency.
A survey was conducted in Rio Grande region (Texas and New Mex-
ico) to understand the farmers’ perspective on adoption barriers for SIS
methods. Results showed that lack of access to weather data and un-
certainty about future water availability were the two largest barriers
to adoption, followed by cost effectiveness of technologies, reliability
of weather data and lack of availability of irrigation scheduling tools
in the region. Also, grower’s skepticism towards technology due to risk
of reduced yield and poor crop quality was listed among the significant
barriers to adoption of SIS methods. The major factors influencing the
adoption of SIS were maintaining the quality of land, producing more
on the existing acreage, becoming more water efficient, and improving
or maintaining water availability for future generations. Age, education,
and years involved with agriculture were estimated as important factors
that may drive the knowledge and adoption of SIS techniques in irriga-
tors’ community. These results could help policy makers and extension
experts narrow down their efforts to promote the water conservation in
the Rio Grande basin as well as in other regions with similar attributes.
One of the limitations of this study was the small response rate (77 use-
able responses) and slightly different findings could be expected with a
larger set of respondents. Future studies may look into the efficacy of
different SIS tools at sub-regional level and may determine which tech-
nology has the potential for fast adoption.
T.A. Berthold, A. Ajaz, T. Olsovsky et al.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgment
Funding for this project is provided by USDA to Project No. 2017-
68007-26318, through the National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s
Agriculture and Food Research Initiative.
Supplementary materials
Supplementary material associated with this article can be found, in
the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.atech.2021.100016.
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