Mobile Water Lab Program Irrigation

The California Water Resources Board created the Mobile Water Lab (MWL) program 20 years ago as a direct result of degraded water quality. The MWL program was developed out of Cal Poly’s Irrigation Training and Research Center and CIMIS weather station. Throughout the program’s history over 1,000 evaluations have been performed.

MWL evaluations before and after installation of practices can assist agricultural producers and Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) planning staff with valuable feedback as to how practices are functioning and help agricultural producers “fine tune” their irrigation scheduling.

These evaluations calculate the Distribution Uniformity (DU) of an existing irrigation system. DU is a measurement of how evenly irrigation water is applied to a field.

Eligible projects include:

Any irrigated agricultural crop
Any large turf grass area defined as one half acre or larger in San Luis Obispo County
School playing fields
Parks and open space areas
Homeowner’s association
Condominiums
Large commercial landscapes
City and County landscapes
Large residential landscapes
Golf courses

The Cachuma RCD provides this service for free to farmers and communities located in San Luis Obispo County in cooperation with the Upper Salinas-Las Tablas RCD and San Luis Coastal RCD.

For additional information and contact numbers click here.