Testimonials

With nearly 1,100 acres of corn and soybeans under T-L Irrigation pivots, Wayne Beck and his son, Curtis, are surely among T-L Irrigation’s best customers. That’s especially true when you consider Wayne has a history with T-L that goes back to 1956, when his dad drilled his first well and started using hand-moved 40-foot T-L aluminum pipe with sprinkler heads.

The irony is that the quarter- mile-long T-L tow lines the family bought in the early 1960s to replace the hand lines were the last T-L products the Becks ever purchased new. Even though they now own 13 T-L center pivots, all those units were purchased used and refurbished by Wayne and his dad, Harold, or, later, by Wayne and Curtis.

“The pull lines were so much easier to move than the hand move lines we used when I was a kid,” says Wayne. “Of course, the first center pivot units were even easier than the pull lines,” he adds, noting that they purchased their first pivot in 1977. “The move from hand lines to tow lines and, finally, center pivots also let us go from 38- and 40-inch rows to 30-inch rows.”

“Our first T-L pivot was a used 13-tower, chain-drive unit that I saw advertised in the Omaha newspaper,” Wayne recalls. “It was a 1973 model that came from what used to be Traudt Irrigation in Sutton, Nebraska (now Sutton Irrigation), and it had been used on a 160-acre field near Giltner.”

“Ernie has been gone several years now, but I still owe a lot of credit to Ernie Traudt for getting us started,” he insists. “He asked us how we planned to use the pivot and we told him we wanted to make two 40- acre pivots out of it. His answer was, ‘Well, I’ve got a pivot point and hydraulic pump you can use for that second one.’ So that’s how Dad and I got started with T-L center pivots.”

With the experience they gained from that first one, Beck says he and his dad, who has since passed, began buying, moving and building even more T-L units. In fact, he says that it got to the point they could dismantle a 10-tower T-L unit to the point it could be transported in as little as three days.

“For a couple years there, Dad and I were bringing home two pivots each winter,” Wayne continues. “Most of those were still chain-drive units that farmers had traded in for the new planetary drive machines. Of course, we understood hydraulics and even chain-drive machines were an improvement on what we had.”

Today, Wayne and Curtis continue to buy and refurbish used T-L pivots. While a few newer planetary drive machines have been used to replace old chain-drive units, the majority have been installed on land they’ve added over the years. One year, they even went so far as to turn a 13-tower unit into an 18-tower model, using parts they had on hand from other used models.

“We still have three old T-L units that are chain driven,” says Curtis. “However, the rest have either been converted to planetary drive models or replaced altogether. To convert the chain-drive units, we have to cut off some of the old drive system, then weld on new brackets for the planetary drive pumps and add the tubing,” he adds. “But we’ve been able to convert several of them without too many problems.”

Beck says the most recent purchase was a T-L pivot that was installed on 200 acres that the family purchased in 2007. As a result, every acre that the family farms, except for the corners, is now under pivot irrigation, providing corn yields that have continually averaged over 200 bushels per acre.

“With the planetary drives and worm drives that T-L puts on the new units, about all you have to do is go out there and check the grease in the gearboxes and check the air in the tires,” Wayne says. “I have replaced the seals and rebuilt the planetary drives in a few units,” he adds. “But even that has been minor, compared to the amount of work electric units require. It’s not that I don’t know how to work with electricity, because we’re all electric on our wells. But I’d much prefer working with hydraulics and having an electric circuit that I can test with something as simple as a light bulb if necessary.”

Beck says he also prefers the continuous movement of T-L pivots and the lack of micro- switches that can go bad after a few years.

“You don’t have any of that ‘herky, jerky’ movement as it moves through the field,” he grins. “And I think you have to consider the torque it requires to re-start every time it stops on some of these hills.”

“I know there are guys who prefer electric pivots who will say, ‘Well, at least I don’t get my hands dirty working on the pivot’,” he concludes. “I guess my answer would be, ‘I don’t profess to wear a white shirt when I’m working on equipment’. The important thing is T-L pivots are just plain reliable. And even when they do need some work, they’re easier to repair and they’re simple to operate.”

Twenty-five years ago, Dallas Larsen had two good experiences: His son Lex was born and he installed his first center pivot system, a T-L.

Now Lex is in charge of their operation near Scottsbluff, Nebraska. And, the T-L is still going around doing its job of irrigating with little or no sign of its “maturity”.

There are 400 acres of corn grown mostly for silage and 200 acres of alfalfa hay on the place. Two T-Ls, with a third being installed this year, and flood irrigation share the watering duties. Two feedlots provide a 10,000 head capacity that’s turned twice annually.

Not too far away at Lusk, Wyoming, the Larsen’s run a 600 cow beef herd. Irrigation there is via two pivots on corn, three pivots on grass, and eight pivots on alfalfa hay. The mode of tillage is moving more and more from conventional to minimum-till.

At both locations rye is drilled into the stalk fields after the corn is harvested for silage. This provides both winter cover and excellent grazing for stocker cattle.

“That first T-L is as old as I am. It’s been pretty reliable. The way it’s working it’ll probably still be sprinkling when a son of mine takes over,” Larsen says with a smile.

The Larsen’s T-L dealer has kept precise records on their T-L irrigation systems. Over the years these figures show they’ve averaged spending less than $20 per tower annually for repairs and maintenance.

“When we do need to do something with a T-L, we can have an employee do most or all of what needs to be done. We don’t have to hire a $100 an hour electrician to come out here to fix it,” says Larsen.

“Also, with a T-L we have no worries about somebody getting electrocuted while working on the system. A little hydraulic oil on you is better than risking electrocution.”

And, if a problem with a T-L does develop, according to Larsen almost anyone who’s been farming knows something about hydraulics. As he notes, “Even somebody new to center pivots can dive right in and feel his way through without hurting himself.”

The main reason the first T-L system was installed and why more have been added over the years is to provide enough corn silage for the cattle operation without having to buy outside.

Larsen says that thanks to a combination of irrigation and advancements in corn hybrid yields the operation now produces more than enough corn silage for its needs on the same amount of ground.

The records show that their corn silage yields under sprinkler irrigation top out at 24 to 25 tons an acre. This is four to five tons an acre more than from the remaining flood-irrigated land.

“Center pivot irrigation doesn’t take nearly as much labor as flood irrigation,” Larsen continues. “It’s two hours a day for flood as opposed to just flipping a switch and checking your gauges on the pivot.”

There’s also a big advantage in efficiency, according to Larsen. Rather than seeing water running out the end of a field with flood irrigation, the center pivot is much more efficient in getting water into the soil without wastage.

“And,” he adds, ‘when it’s really hot, it’s nice to know that our center pivots can cover a crop three times faster that we could with flood irrigation.

“Maybe the best thing about sprinkler irrigation is that it helps your morale, because you don’t see your stalks shriveling up and dying.”

When he explains why he prefers a T-L center-pivot, Ryan Weeks taps his fingers as he observes, “A T-L never quits moving.”

“In the first place,” he continues, “except for a silage guy running into one of the towers, all of our T-Ls have been pretty trouble-free. We’ve never replaced a gearbox or even had an oil leak. We’ve never had a problem yet with a T-L.”

“All we do is run them through the maintenance program every year. They’re great.”

This includes a T-L unit initially installed 30 years ago. Since then it’s run 650 to 1,200 hours every summer. Although it was designed as a high pressure system, Weeks says it’s now operated at a medium pressure.

Figuring an average of 800 hours a year, he estimates that this particular T-L has operated at least 24,000 hours; and it is still waiting for its first major repair.

Altogether, Ryan and his father, Mike, farm 2,400 acres near Juniata, Nebraska, which is divided among no-till dry land, ridge-till gravity irrigation fields, and a combination of ridge-till and no-till under the center-pivots. The men operate six pivots, three T-Ls and three non-owned electric systems. Field-wide, their irrigated corn generally produces more than 200 bushels an acre.

“One of the best things about a T-L unit is if I ever need to work on one, I could do it myself,” Weeks continues. “If we’d need a part we’d have it within 24 to 36 hours, too. T-Ls are simple. Most farmers understand hydraulics, since almost every piece of equipment they use has hydraulics. I wouldn’t have to call an electrician.”

In contrast, he points to a breakdown on one of the electric sprinklers last spring. The first dealer the Weeks called said he could be on the farm in maybe five days. The second dealer in the area thought he could possibly be there in three days.

“This is the biggest problem we have with the electric units, that and I’m just nervous around electricity. With a T-L the worry factor is gone.”

He says that when they hear a whine coming from an electric center-pivot, they know they’re soon going to have to be doing some mosquito-fraught replacement work.

Another way to look at, “It never quits moving,” according to Weeks, is that the corn grown under T-L irrigation this past summer looked “100 percent better” than corn under the electric centerpivots.

“On one farm in particular, we could see the difference in sprinkler packages and the advantage of the T-L’s continuous movement,” he relates. “Some of this we could attribute partly to management changes, but a lot of it was due to a more uniform water application, because the T-L never stops.”

As for comparing a center-pivot system to gravity irrigation, Weeks emphasizes that there’s really no comparison. The center-pivots, he says, represent “a lot less work, more efficiency and less sweating.”

Meanwhile, Ryan and his father are convinced that today’s farmers must be stewards of their resources, especially in an area of declining water tables.

Their experience has been that a center-pivot system uses half the water and half the fuel that is required to cover the same number of acres by gravity irrigation, thinking that might be a conservative estimate, too.

They believe the old “Time is money” saying applies to center-pivot superiority quite well, Weeks also equates the effort saved to precious additional time with the family, getting more things done and the capability to take on more acres.

He’s also noted the many technological advances made in T-L systems as time has gone on, commenting that, “There’s been so much done with end guns, booster pumps and drops. Everything is just all-around better.”

“I like the fact that T-L’s owners were and are still farmers,” he smiles. “Anybody can invent something. But, until there’s a practical application you don’t know it’s going to work.”

“The T-L people put their products on their own farms and they try to make sure an idea is going to work before it goes to anybody else. If they trust it on their own farms, we’ll trust it on ours.”

GPS is just one of the modern “tools” used on the Weeks’ farm. As Ryan points out, “We’ve invested in technology.”

This consists of using variablerate seeding with their corn planter for the past three years; utilizing a yield monitor and its mapping ability on their combine, then writing “prescriptions” for their dealer to apply variable-rate fertilizer that contains many micronutrients.

Ryan is a member of the Nebraska Leadership Education/Action Program (LEAD), a select group of farmers dedicated to developing a network of highly motivated leaders for agriculture.