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Rick VanVranken – Plant and Pest Advisory November 25, 2024
As 2024 winds down and irrigation pumps are finally being shut off after a
very long, dry season, thinking about calculating how much water was used
to be able to fill out that NJ DEP report form in a couple of months is likely
the furthest thing on your mind. However, the RCE Ag Water Use Log Excel
Template https://go.rutgers.edu/IrrigationLog can make that process much
easier, whether you have used it all season, or just need an easier way
rather than tabulating all those hours of pumping by hand.
The NJ Department of Environmental Protection rules for Agricultural Water
Usage Certification requires that irrigation users keep monthly logs of water
use by recording the number of hours each pump runs each day. Logs can
be as simple as recording hours pumped in a notebook or on a calendar,
from which monthly water usage can be calculated for mandatory annual
reporting.
An Irrigation Pump Log is available on the NJ Vegetable Crops Online
Resources site. (https://nj-vegetable-crops-online-resources.rutgers.edu/
soils-irrigation/irrigation-pump-log-2/) It is a spreadsheet template that
provides both a simplified recording form (that can be printed for each pump
and placed at the pump or in the vehicle used by your irrigation manager),
and a calculating form that allows data from the field log to be transferred
into the computer file which automatically calculates annual reporting
figures.
The file, which requires Microsoft Excel to run (enable editing), can be
downloaded and opened. Selecting the print function will print only the
required page to use for each well. Print multiple copies if you have more
than one well to monitor. When transferring field data into the spreadsheet,
start by selecting a new tab at the bottom of the screen for each well
(already set up for Well #1, but needs to be copied for additional wells).
Then transfer the data from the field sheets, including the information about
each well at the top of the page. It is critical to put in the pump capacity as
that is needed for calculating the monthly water use (if you put in all the
hours and the monthly use reads ‘0’, check that the pump capacity cell is
filled correctly).
Questions or suggestions for improving this log can be directed to Atlantic
County Agent Rick VanVranken (vanvranken@njaes.rutgers.edu).