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Wyoming | First, allow me to make something abundantly clear:
A linear is a much different animal than a pivot, despite linears being made with the exact same components (steel, gearboxes, wheels and electrical) as pivots. We used to have linears here. We converted them all to pivots. You couldn't give me a linear again, and any pivot salesman who stands up in public in this county who claims that linears are the solution to any problem gets to feel my wrath and fury. Linears are acceptable only in cases where:
1. They're fed from a concrete-lined ditch (which means level ground).
2. They're using the diesel gen-set & pump on the feed tower.
3. They're being guided by something like a GPS unit, not by a furrow or a wire.
Our pivots were fed with soft-sided hoses and dragged a power cord. Hose changes were a bear of a job, and the machines never got enough water on the ground. When using a linear, you must consider the issue of how you get the machine back to the starting point on the field and whether you're going to run the machine back down to the other end of the field wet or dry.
What finally did it for me was this realization: With a pivot, when you wake up in the morning, you ALWAYS know where one end of that machine will be. It will be connected to the 6-cu yard chunk of concrete in the middle of the field.
With a linear, you never really know where the machine will be. If the guidance system fails, that machine could start walking off the field, walking through fences, etc. Even if it is off just a little bit, it will take you quite some time to get the machine back to where it is supposed to be.
Linears are a bad joke. Trouble is, the clowns at Valley, Zimmatic, Reinke are the only ones laughing -- and they start laughing the moment you hand them the check.
Now, flood vs. pivot:
Flood is simple, has a low cost of capital improvement, doesn't clutter up the landscape, etc. On the flip side, you need to level your field(s), put in borders, etc. Flood is much less efficient in water use than a properly designed pivot system is. With flood irrigation, you can't use chemigation.
Pivots allow you to chemigate. We apply most of our fertilizer, some herbicides and pesticides through our pivot. The pivot has to go around the field anyway , so why not make it do double duty?
Pivots cost money and time to install. Lots of it. Pivots force you to farm in circles, and as you quickly find out, there are plenty of farming implements (particularly tillage) that don't want to go in circles, especially the tight circles you need to make in the center two tower spans.
Pivots are the most efficient way to apply water. You can apply different rates of water (and chemicals) as you move the pivot around the field.
Now, for the most important issue of flood vs. pivots:
Flood irrigation requires level ground. Period, full stop.
If you go up into eastern Idaho, you'll see pivots irrigating some of the most ferociously hilly wheat ground you can imagine. And it works. Pivots allow you to irrigate ground you couldn't water otherwise.
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center pivot irrigation using GPS
