Farm Tour

I got to go on a field trip for work today.  I, along with three co-workers, joined one of our appraisers on a farm tour of the Arkansas Valley in Pueblo County.

More specifically, we learned about the Bessemer Irrigating Ditch which was created to irrigate the very fertile agricultural land that lies to the east of Pueblo. 

We started at the Pueblo Reservoir.


In addition to the Bessemer Ditch, the Arkansas River flows out of the reservoir.  Also, in the distance is the beginning of the Southern Delivery System which was a very controversial project for delivering water to the city of Colorado Springs from the reservoir.

Several years ago the city of Pueblo initiated a program to revitalize their downtown area with the Arkansas Riverwalk.  It flows through the center of town and is absolutely beautiful.

Back to the ditch--it flows for several miles to the east of Pueblo.

This is one of the head gates.  The water level is measured remotely--notice the solar panels



Farmers who own water shares get access to the water every couple days.  Each share they own (or lease) entitles them to 26 minutes of water.  The time starts from when the gates are opened to their section.

This is a small ditch that flows off of the Bessemer Ditch. 

When it's this farmer's turn to get the water, each end of the ditch is dammed off and the siphon pipes deliver water to the fields.

This is a newer way to get the water to the fields.  There are little traps on the bottom of the pipe that can be opened or closed to regulate the water flow.

I thought it was interesting that if someone does not use their water rights, they may be accused of abandment and may lose their rights.  So they have to use their allotted water whether they need it or not.

Of course how can you go on a farm tour without stopping at a local produce stand? 

This producer hires women from the Department of Corrections to harvest their crops which I thought was very interesting.

I think I'd jump at the chance to be outside in the fields rather than being locked away. 

We even got to go out to the fields and pick our own pumpkins!

We stopped by a customer's fields who has Anaheim peppers and corn planted.




What's interesting about these fields are that the farmer just purchased them in March. They had been abandoned for years and were overgrown with weeds.





Here it is seven months later and he has crops in the ground.

I thought it was very impressive.

We didn't know why the peppers had not been harvested. Perhaps they were unable to get to them before the first freeze, or maybe they're going to be used for seeds.

This is field corn that will be used for livestock feed or ethanol.

I didn't get a picture of it, but we stopped at a place that had an acre of Zinnia flowers planted.  The flowers  were all dead and brown--they're used for Zinnia seeds.  An acre of Zinnia seeds can bring in $2,500 to $3,000 dollars.  Apparently it's very labor intensive though, it has to be harvested by hand.

A very interesting day!  What did I learn?

I learned we need to be thankful to those farmers who open and close irrigation gates and move water around even in the middle of the night to water their fields so that we can have fresh produce on our table.  It's a lot of hard work!

It was a beautiful day--78 degrees. Tomorrow we're expecting our first winter storm, a high of 32 degrees and 4-7 inches of snow.  Crazy!