Border Ditch Irrigation in Colorado

ABSTRACT THE border ditch method is a labor intensive form of surface irrigation that is most appropriate for crops with deep root zones and large water requirements. Ir-rigating a field using the method requires irrigator ex-perience gained from trial and error experimentation on that particular field. Although border ditch fields are de-signed to have cross slopes, poor irrigation uniformity results as a direct consequence of these slopes. Irrigation evaluations resulted in application efficiencies ranging from 25 to 45 percent and requirement efficiencies from 90 to 100 percent. Irrigators continue to use the border ditch method because of tradition and their perception of the physical and economic qualities of the method.