Sustainable water use practices are a priority for farmers across the country. Many farmers in Jefferson County use wasteful practices such as overhead watering to bring water to their crops. This is especially true of New American Farmers who have limited experience and exposure to different types of watering methods. In order to expose New American Farmers to different watering methods, the Horticulture Agent partnered with Irrigation Specialist, Dr. Brent Rowell of UK, the Jefferson Co. Soil & Water Conservation District and Common Earth Gardens to host a drip irrigation workshop and demonstration to teach New American Farmers about drip irrigation.

The workshop was held on Saturday, May 18 from 10 am-12:30 pm at one of Common Earth Garden's sites. Common Earth provided interpreters for this workshop and helped connect with the gardeners at the site. Jefferson Co. Extension provided materials to set up two different drip irrigation systems, one on-the-grid and one off-the-grid, as well as handouts for gardeners. The Jefferson Co. Soil & Water Conservation District came to help offer at-cost supplies for interested farmers to help them set up drip systems if they were interested. Dr. Rowell led the workshop and taught all participants how to set up drip irrigation.

A total of eight New American Farmers and four American-born farmers attended this workshop. None of the participants had prior experience with drip irrigation. With the help of Dr. Rowell, we set up two different systems. The first was an on-the-grid system which we installed in the first three rows of a New American farmer's plot. All participants had the opportunity to help construct the drip irrigation lines and ask questions about how to make the system work in their specific plots. The second system was set up in a demonstration plot far from a water source and utilized a 35 gallon barrel as the place to store water. Again, all participants got hands-on experience in setting up this style of drip system.

At the end of the workshop, we polled all twelve participants about their interest in installing one of theses systems. All twelve participants recognized the advantage of a drip irrigation system in their personal farm/garden areas. Four of the New American Farmers were interested in pricing out the cost of installing a drip system on their farms for the remainder of the 2019 growing season. An additional 4 New Americans wanted to incorporate drip irrigation into their farms in the 2020 growing year. One American-born farmer is planning to install an on-the-grid drip irrigation system on his farm this fall while three American-born gardeners wanted to further explore their gardens and the pricing before installing an off-the-grid drip irrigation system into their community garden plots.

The Horticulture Agent and representative from Soil & Water collected contact information for all participants and plan to follow up with all twelve participants within the next month (for those who are interested in 2019 installation) and within the next four months (for those who are interested in installation for 2020). Dr. Rowell has agreed to provide additional assistance to the New American Farmers in setting up their irrigation systems if/when they decide to move forward with irrigation installation.