Through the Flour Mill Project, Trout Unlimited, Colorado State University (CSU) and a local landowner will provide ranchers and local landowners with critical irrigation data that will help them effectively improve their soil and water conservation efforts. This project, if successful, could have profound impacts on Colorado’s ranching industry.
With prolonged drought and a decreasing water supply in the Colorado River and its tributaries, many ranchers across Colorado are looking for ways to improve their irrigation practices while maintaining their operations and cutting costs.
Trout Unlimited and CSU will assist local landowners by installing soil moisture sensors on their properties to study the productivity of alternative forage types and if they reduce water usage in the process. This will provide the state’s ranching communities with locally derived data on how soil health and water conservation can go hand-in-hand to help farmers and ranchers adapt to increasingly hot and dry conditions and less reliable water supplies. In turn, farmers and ranchers may be able to reduce costs, maintain or enhance their operations, and adopt less water-intensive forages.
Data from the project could be used to benefit the state’s agricultural practices, downstream users, and the Colorado River Basin as a whole. Trout Unlimited and CSU’s Integrated Rocky Mountain-region Innovation Center for Healthy Soils (IN-RICHES) Program are collaborating to apply for future funding.
