If you've ever been flying in an airplane and you look out the window
and you see these big green circles in the middle of a field, what is that?
Today we're going to build the thing that makes this happen.
This is my buddy Trey. He's a farmer. Farmers are geniuses.
We established that in the last video we did together about grain bins.
Today, I have a question.
I want to know what these
big things are that I see in the fields.
What is that?
It's a center pivot irrigation system.
A Center Pivot Irrigation System.
So it's a way, a tool we use to transfer, in this case, groundwater
out to the field and then use a circular pivot
to apply it to the crops when they need it.
If we don't get sufficient rain from Mother Nature,
we can cut the pivots on to give the crop what it needs.
We're building two pivots right? That's Right. -Okay.
And one in that field and one in this field.
And I'm just going to.
I'm basically just gonna do whatever trade tells me to do.
Sounds good.
Let's go get smarter every day and learn about irrigation pivots.
♫ (Smarter Every Day Guitar Sting) ♫
So I see these things while driving around all the time.
They look like big bridges or cranes kind of on their side.
Okay, this is our field.
This is our dirt. And this is a pipe.
We're going to put water out in the field with a pipe.
It's called an irrigation pivot.
So we've got a pivot point here.
We have to rotate the pipe around the pivot point.
So there's tons of questions here.
Like, for example, when the pipe fills up with water,
it's going to get heavy and it's going to want to sag. Right?
So how do we support that pipe from below?
And are there different sections to this thing
or is it just one long run of pipe?
And what are the sprinklers look like?
When crops are in the field? How does it move without damaging the crops?
And how does this thing even move? All this stuff
started to become clear to me once
we went out there and started building the thing.
The first thing that we did is we pulled a pad for the pivot itself.
After that, we spent a lot of time literally digging ditches
so that we could run the pipe out to the pivot point.
This was a family affair, Trey got the whole family involved.
My job initially was to lube up the pipes
and connect them together as Trey's brother used the track hoe to dig
the ditch and treat kept me supplied with new sections of pipe.
We also ran wire all the way through the ditch beside the pipe,
all the way to the pivot point itself, which tells me that's where the power
for the whole pivot comes from.
The next big step came a few weeks later when a crew arrived and led
by a father son team we've got Andy, or Andreas...
And Jose.
Jose is who I like to call the "Jefe".
These guys are experts at assembling irrigation pivots.
How many of these have you built?
Who? - You Me? -Yeah
Wow!
¿Es posible para ayuda? Can I help?
No...
No, you don't want me to help?
You want me to stay out of the way?
Ha ha ha ha.
So I've got to figure out how to establish myself
as a trusted individual.
You want me to do them?
Three on each side?
Yeah, ¿Donde?
Long, and then short (gestures)
Okay. Got it.
Three long, three short in each location.
My first job! Hehehe!
I think I'm in.
They grew more tolerant of me and started letting me do more stuff.
So we laid out all the parts
for what ended up being the first of three 200 foot sections of the pivot.
After laying all that stuff out, we started putting together
this pyramid that would eventually be the center of the pivot.
Uno momento.... (One moment) Listo (Ready)
¿Donde?
It's faster when I get out of the way!
Next, we assembled an electronics box
that would
eventually run the whole pivot, and we attached that to the side
of that pyramid.
Jose then picked up the whole thing with a forklift
and drove it over to the cement pad where he put it down
and bolted it to the concrete.
Meanwhile, we jump back over and started stringing together the large rods
that would eventually support the whole pivot arm.
These rods are in tension and I thought it was really cool
the way we clasp them together with these little bracket mechanisms.
All right, teach me what my next job is, Andy.
Yeah, it's a gasket in each one...
You see? It's got a flat and a flat? -Yeah..
On the side...
On the bottom, it's different.
Okay. Just make sure not to pinch it? Yeah.
All the bolts on one side?
Okay.
That, all the way down, right?
So I've learned what happens is there's like one task you learn
and then you do it 100 times.
That seems to be the way this works.
When we finished
organizing the pipes, the tension rods and the structural supports
that holds it all together,
we then unspooled electrical wire
and attached to it along the length of the pipe.
We then started connecting these plastic tubes,
which I'm pretty sure is how we're going to attach the sprinklers.
I was a little upset because these things are soft, right?
And so they're cross threading
when you put them in the metal, which is difficult.
But Jose was explaining to me that that's on purpose,
because if there's a storm
and this whole irrigation system flips over or something,
these things will break off and you won't damage the pipe.
So that's on purpose.
Another thing that I'm observing here,
this pipe has a little spigot in every hole.
This pipe does not it's...empty....
It's got when there.... it's empty.
It's got one there.
And so at this point, I'm starting to understand, I'm thinking...
as this arc sweeps around the field, the
the arm that's closest to the pivot center,
this one's not going to move as much as those out there.
So if you have the same flow rate in each location, you're going to water
the inside of the field more than the outside of the field.
And that's bad. Oh, no, we have hoses. What does this mean?
And these are the sprinkler heads.
Oh, they've got numbers.
So it feels like we're going towards this.
There appears to be a weight
on the nozzle
of the sprinkler head?
So that holds it down over the crop, I guess.
I guess
I was wondering what those were their weights.
At this point. Stuff started to get serious.
Jose was on the forklift and he picked up
one of the spans of the pivot, which I learned they call towers.
We'd been hustlin all day, but there was a definite increase
in the expected pace coming from the bosses.
Are we....?
Come on!!
(Unintelligible Yelling)
Come on!
(Both laughing)
Destin - How do you do it!?
I couldn't get the bolts in because I didn't know
what parts of the truss were in tension and what parts were in compression.
Jose, of course, understood everything.
Man! that's a man that's done that a lot.
So we're building trusses and I am the inexperienced man on the job.
This feels stressful! Boy, this is happening fast.
The gloves are in the way.
Coming in, coming in. Just... a whole pile of 'em.
Once the tower started coming together, it was amazing to see how the pipe
is an integrated part of the mechanics of the overall structure.
So it does two things.
It provides the water and it also provides structure.
I'm jealous of the aprons.
Very jealous of the apron.
At one point I made a mistake and complained about the 90 degree heat.
It's nice. It's not hot...
Destin -This is not hot?
(Patronizing Destin is a funny way) No.
(Walking away laughing)
The next big step was to attach the axle.
Hey, come on... NO NO NO! (Saves Destin's Hand)
Watch you'll cut your fingers!
You know?
(Encouraging Destin) Come on...
Aw, yeah!! (Both laugh.. clearly an important moment)
At this point, one of my big questions was answered.
We attached the drive train and an electric motor that would turn
the wheels.
And next, of course, we had to attach the wheels themselves.
Interestingly, there was a
second set of temporary wheels, which we had to bang into some piping
so that we could pull this thing across the field.
At the end here.
So we got to have the water flow
from one section to the other.
It's my understanding that this is going to go up top
and this is going to be the interface between one section in the other.
The next question, though, is how do you keep one section of the pivot
if you're swinging around the field that way?
How do you keep them lined up?
So there's got to be limit switches in there somehow.
I just don't know what those look like, so I don't know.
Look at 'im, he's about to pull this whole thing,
we should probably ready to walk.
Jose pulled the first completed tower section all the way across the field
and had to do quite a bit of a dance to back it up perfectly
so that the connection point was right where it needed to be
so we could bolt it up.
(Chain clanking) That's it
OK..
It looks like the pipe
is going to have to come up and over and then plumb straight up into this.
Power is going to have to go through that box right there, the control box.
These slip rings are fascinating to me.
So these slip rings, you can see there's the brushes right there.
Obviously, I would not want to be touching that if it was electrified,
but that is providing the power for the whole thing, man.
And those are those are thick copper.
All right. Sit down.
First Corinthians 3:7. Trey had that put in.
So back to work, we had two more tower sections to build,
which by now I kind of understood the process
a little bit more, and I think it's started to be helpful.
I even get to wear one of those little aprons
which carries the nuts and bolts, and I don't know
if they were just being nice to me, but it made me really happy.
Anyway, we got the wheels up and running on the second one
and then we took it over and attach it to the first.
It's literally coming together. I'm starting to understand it.
And then we get to build the third
and final tower section, which had a wrinkle to it,
which the first two sections didn't have.
Oh, it's the end!
That goes on the end!
All right!
I was wondering what Jose was getting.
He's getting the big spooty thing on the end.
So this being the outermost section at the end, it's essentially
a large "CHK-A-CHK-A-CHK-A" Type Sprinkler. (Lawn sprinkler noises)
You know what I'm trying to say...
It shoots water WAY out beyond the end of the pivot.
It's really fun to see the engineering involved in this little contraption.
If you look, it goes to one side and then it cams over
and it reverses direction and it's all completely mechanical and it's
controlled by these little weights on the side.
That goes...this is going to hit that (Satisfying spring-click sound)
throws the cam throws this back.
When we came back
the next day, I received what was the final blessing from my Jefe.
So I would assume that you have the ability
Forget the nail apron.
HE LET ME DRIVE THE FORKLIFT
which in my heart,
was the best gift that Jose could have ever given me.
After everything was in position, Trey just needed to finish connecting
all the electrical lines
and then run the well pipe up through the center of the pivot point.
And a few months later,
I was able to come out and see how they actually performed in action.
So I haven't seen this thing operate yet.
I spent a lot of times work working on these things in your field.
All right, here's the wheel.
And the wheel makes its own little path here, right?
Trey - That's correct. D - Knowing you...
farmers aren't lazy, but
farmers are technologically advanced.
to turn this on from your phone right now.
I do.
We haven't talked about this.
Whoa! almost through your phone.
I want you to see the phone. So we're going down into the beans.
D- Okay. So this is how you set it?
T- That's correct.
D- So you're setting... it's in polar coordinates.
So you're setting start 23 degrees end 93 degrees.
And that's cardinal directions, right?
T- That's right. D- Okay.
D- Zero's north.
T- Right and so.. D- you just uploaded that?
T- Yep, and so. Well. (Large mechanical noise in background)
Oh I hear it (Large mechanical noise in background)
What do I hear? Oh, it's moving.
T- See the water coming out of it. D- No, I don't.
Oh, it's coming towards us!
D- So it's priming it.
T- It's priming it and so...
D-So there's air right here and there's water down there.
That's right.
Check out this view from the pivot point.
You can actually see the pipes get heavier as they fill up with water.
It's coming towards us and it's spraying a lot wider than I anticipated.
(Calm Music plays over rain sounds)
That is a LOT of flow, man.
(You can hear air leaving the line, and the end sprinkler starts gasping to life. It's very cool.)
That is WAY more water than I thought.
(Destin, like a kid) - Can I run up the leg?
(Trey, like a reluctant Grandfather) ...You can.
Oh, man.
Golly.
Trey - Don't touch the boxes up there!
D- Don't touch the boxes!
I will not!
Dude....so those things spin. T- Yep!
You like your pivot?
I do like it. Do you?
I do like it.
(Gentle rain sounds)
(Gordon's music makes you feel more things about beans than you've ever felt)
♬ 💦 ♬ 💦 ♬
This is uh.... there's more to this than I thought.
Look at all that.
There are two more big questions for me with this pivot.
First, how do they distribute water evenly since the sprinklers
at the end of the pivot would be covering a lot more ground
while it makes a circle than the ones near the center of the pivot?
How do they take that into account?
I had noticed earlier that they spaced out the sprinklers
closer together as they got further out and there were gaps up
towards the center of the pivot. But was that all?
But basically, each nozzles got a regulator in it, a 10 pound regulator.
The further you get from the center, the bigger the orifice is on the nozzle.
Up there, you have the same pressure, but the orifice is smaller.
This plant needs to see the exact amount of water
as that plant up there near the circle. That's right near the pivot.
Excuse me. Near the center. Yeah.
And so the way they do that is by bearing the varying
the flow rate on each of these.
That's right.
And that was why it was so important for each nozzle to be numbered
and go in its correct place.
They needed to be assembled in the correct order.
The second big question is how exactly to the pivot sections
stay in line with each other?
And usually slo mo footage is what I like to do to learn something new.
But in this case I had to speed it up to see what was happening.
This is a camera placed
back at the center of the pivot, and I'm looking down
the whole length of the line.
Now I'm speeding it up and can you see what's going on here?
The sections don't seem to be moving continuously, do they?
They're kind of walking.... They're starting and stopping.
So what's happening here?
We are on the second to last tower.
So that tower down there is the last tower.
That's the furthest point away from the pivot point.
The pivot point is back up there.
So we've got the the box lid off here.
We're not going to touch that because that's AC power and that's a no-no.
But if you look down here.
You can see this bar...
right here on the left is connected to the far tower.
As the far tower moves in relation
to the tower that I'm on, it adjusts this linkage right here.
That linkage on that tower
goes to this switch right here, and it's rotating that switch.
On the inside of the box.
That arm is connected to this little black cam,
which rotates depending on the angle of that cam.
It turns these little brown limit switches on and off, which
then starts the wheels driving this particular tower section.
So this one cam is the magic.
It's telling this tower section whether it needs to move or
stop in order to keep up with the next tower down the line.
So what that means is that far this tower is controlling the tower
that we're on and they're all controlled by the one further away
from the pivot point, right? That's correct.
Going back to this shot, you can see the entire control system at work.
It's basically a game of follow the leader, the tower at the far end
sets the pace and everything in closer to the pivot.
Follow suit with what engineers called bang bang controls
each limits, which along the way tells the wheels when to turn on and off.
And that ends up aligning it in
what looks like to the naked eye a perfectly straight line.
But it's not.
It's a carefully choreographed control scheme and I think it's awesome.
Before we get in this big combine
and go try to harvest some beans and measure them,
I want tell you about one thing.
So, I started doing this thing that I think is really cool.
It's a little silly, but I love it.
So I'm going to tell you about any way,
Way back when I did the baseball cannon, I sent everybody that was a patron, a baseball.
Then I asked people to stick with me for
a while and continue supporting on Patreon. And they did.
And I did this thing and I didn't tell anybody about it.
I called it "The Supersonic Baseball Team",
which I love, and I sent everybody a sticker for "sticking with me".
And I know it sounds silly, but I just love it.
So that was last year. I've done something different.
For this year I have created what's called
"The Smarter Every Day James Webb Space Telescope Space Team"
and this year the stickers are Holographic.
And here's what I'm trying to do.
I just want to give people something to say
"Thank you for sticking with me."
You don't need this. You don't need this sticker.
But let's face it, look at it. You kind of want it, right? Haha
I do.
You don't need it.
This is just a way of me saying "Thank You" to everybody
that supports Smarter Day Every Day on Patreon.
uh, I lost a big sponsor this year, which was a pretty big deal.
You get what I'm going for here.
You understand what I'm trying to do,
and you're willing to pitch in.
So I'm going to create a new team every year.
And the cool thing about it is they're kind of nostalgic.
Like last year we built the super sonic baseball canon.
This year.
My dad worked on the James. Webb Space Telescope.
We made videos about that, and I'm already working on
what we're going to do next year for the team.
So the point is not the sticker.
The point is to say "Thank You" for those that have stuck with me on Patreon.
And if you consider
checking that out, it's always hard to ask this sort of thing.
But if you consider supporting on Patreon, I'd be grateful you can do that
at Patreon.com/SmarterEveryDay.
There's still time to join the team for this year's sticker.
If you're sticking with me at the end of the year, I'm
going to send you the sticker.
So anyway, thank you so much.
Those that support at Patreon.com/SmarterEveryDay.
I'm truly grateful and let's go get on this combine
and see how many beans are in this field.
Okay, we're harvesting beans here.
You can see them over the shoulder.
Tray is driving the combine here.
This is the non irrigated portion of the field
and our yield is around 60 bushels per acre.
Is that right? That's right. Okay.
And so we are going into the the outer part
we call the part that sprays the end gun, the end gun.
So we're entering the
irrigated portion of the gun and we'll see how our yield goes up.
So right now, this is irrigated beans now.
That's right.
Okay. All right.
Irrigated beans. What's our yield up here?
We're mid eighties
on the beans, so that's about a 25% increase.
So what is 25 more bushels per acre mean?
That's a big deal, right? That's a big deal, yeah.
How long would it take a pivot like this to pay itself off.
Based on the rainfall this year of this
return, this increase in yield, probably about five years would be the ROE.
And then after that, it's the crop. Right.
And but we had some we had some corn irrigated this year
that basically the irrigation system made a lot more money
because of the way the weather failed with the rain.
So it's all about the weather. It's all about the weather. Yeah.
So farmers are economist weather people scientist.
You literally have a master's degree in hydrology.
I know this about you.
So this is a mechanical mechanic?
Yeah. Farmers are geniuses.
And this is why you got food on your plate today.
The bank, a farmer.
So I hope you enjoy learning everything about pivots with me.
It was fun building that play in the pipe that
that feeds the thing with water.
Learn about the wells
and then ultimately getting to see the beans that the the pivot help make.
So I hope you enjoyed this episode of Smarter Every Day.
I'm Dustin.
Feel free to subscribe if you're into this sort of thing
and consider supporting on Patreon if you're interested that
farmers are geniuses, go say thanks to a farmer they feed.
It's destiny.
They get smarter every day and have a good one by.