Analysis reveals new irrigation tech could save Californian agriculture sector $9.75 billion over 5 years

Aug 30, 2023

SONOMA COUNTY, Calif., -- A new analysis from Lumo, a Smart Agtech company that supports growers and tackles water challenges head on using the most advanced water technology available, reveals that irrigation technology could save Californian farmers $9.75 billion in labor and electricity costs – and a staggering 1.33 trillion gallons of water – over the next five years.

Lumo's technology, which is already installed in select areas of 42 locations that represent a combined total of 150,000 acres, could cut $1.75 billion dollars in labor and $200 million in electricity per year if it was installed across all five million acres of specialty crop agricultural land in California, according to the new figures.

The analysis, which comes three months before the start of the COP28 summit in the United Arab Emirates, also shows how new irrigation technology could save 266.8 billion gallons of water each year across California – the equivalent annual water consumption of 2.67 million homes – protecting water resources and the environment.

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Video: Seeing the Whole Season: How Continuous Crop Modeling Is Changing Breeding

Plant breeding has long been shaped by snapshots. A walk through a plot. A single set of notes. A yield check at the end of the season. But crops do not grow in moments. They change every day.

In this conversation, Gary Nijak of AerialPLOT explains how continuous crop modeling is changing the way breeders see, measure, and select plants by capturing growth, stress, and recovery across the entire season, not just at isolated points in time.

Nijak breaks down why point-in-time observations can miss critical performance signals, how repeated, season-long data collection removes the human bottleneck in breeding, and what becomes possible when every plot is treated as a living data set. He also explores how continuous modeling allows breeding programs to move beyond vague descriptors and toward measurable, repeatable insights that connect directly to on-farm outcomes.

This conversation explores:

• What continuous crop modeling is and how it works

• Why traditional field observations fall short over a full growing season

• How scale and repeated measurement change breeding decisions

• What “digital twins” of plots mean for selection and performance

• Why data, not hardware, is driving the next shift in breeding innovation As data-driven breeding moves from research into real-world programs, this discussion offers a clear look at how seeing the whole season is reshaping value for breeders, seed companies, and farmers, and why this may be only the beginning.