Polytech research scientist developing better ways to irrigate

By Lethbridge Herald on January 29, 2026.

Herald Photo by Alexandra Noad Michael Kehoe, research scientist at Lethbridge polytechnic is studying how irrigators can implement new technologies and strategies to improve irrigation management.

By Alexandra Noad

Local Journalism Initiative Reporter -Lethbridge Herald

Agriculture is Alberta’s second largest industry and is entirely reliant on irrigation to thrive.

As water supplies becomes less predictable a research scientist at Lethbridge Polytechnic has been developing software tools to help irrigators make informed decisions and make sure every drop counts while growing their plants.

Michael Kehoe has been a research scientist with the Mueller Irrigation Research Group within the Centre for Applied Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CARIE) at Lethbridge Polytechnic since 2020.

He is currently working on a three-year project which focuses on optimizing irrigation sensors to improve irrigation management.

Kehoe explains that the Polytechnic has the four main types of sensors and have been measuring the water cycles to develop forecasting tools, so farmers can better predict how much water they need to order.

“That’s one of the key things people miss is irrigators need to know ahead of time, not today, whether they’re going to need that water.”

One of the studies he worked on last summer compared subsurface drip irrigation (SDI), which are lines under the field that emit water directly to the root zone, to centre pivot irrigation, where it is sprayed from above onto the grown.

To Kehoe’s surprise, the water usage for both of these was almost identical, but there was a big difference in efficiency.

“We expected a big difference in the water usage between the two crops and what it came out as, it was almost identical, but the efficiency was far greater on the SDI, so it was really a proof of (the) concept that SDI is more efficient at using water, at least in that one season.”

While there still is more research to be done to see conclusive evidence on the efficiency of new technology such as SDI actually are, Kehoe says many irrigators are flying blind when it comes to irrigation and he hopes his work will eliminate that guess work in the future.

“Currently a lot of irrigators are sort of flying blind and they’ve got a lot of experience so they’re doing a reasonably good job, but we just think there’s a lot of potential through measurement to improve irrigation management.”

Implementing new technology and strategies in irrigation will not only help irrigators, it will benefit all of southern Alberta who relies on irrigation.