The modern irrigation industry is an indispensable partner to the professional landscape industry. Neither can survive without the other. In many parts of the country residential and commercial landscapes, campuses, sports fields and golf courses must have irrigation to remain healthy and attractive.

The two industries are tied together in other ways, as well. As landscaping prospers (we're including professional grounds maintenance) so does the irrigation industry. When landscaping slows, the demand for irrigation slows, in particular the demand for installations.

Drought emerged as a huge challenge for the irrigation industry in 2007. Drought is slowing every segment of the Green Industry in many of the country's fast-developing regions. Record low reservoir levels and burgeoning development are stressing water supplies from Tennessee east across Virginia, the Carolinas and far south into Georgia and Alabama. South and southwest Florida have similar water woes. In response, water agencies are implementing landscape and turf watering restrictions and, in some cases, bans.

Ray Green, owner of Atlantic Lawn Irrigation, Milford, NH, tells colleagues the worst thing to do in a sluggish economy is to fight like a pack of hungry dogs over every little scrap of business, especially in terms of pricing.

"I can't understand why that when the economy gets bad, people in this business start dropping their prices," says Green, who has been in the irrigation business for more than 20 years. "I almost think the industry is destroying itself from within.

Like the landscape industry, irrigation has its share of operators with little business knowledge or experience, he says. While most can't sustain themselves in business, their unrealistic pricing and sub-standard work confuses customers and creates unrealistic expectations that ultimately lead to customer dissatisfaction. "The industry is too easy to get into," says Green.

Even so, he doesn't believe that strict licensing or certification requirements are the complete answer. There's little enforcement against people doing work without the necessary insurance or business licenses as it is, he points out.

The irrigation industry will be better served by better educating the public to its value.

"I'm coming out very aggressively next year against this price cutting. I'm going to be very aggressive with our marketing," he says.

Meanwhile, experienced irrigation pros continue to strengthen their seasonal maintenance and repair capabilities. This part of their business is not tied so directly to new construction.

This fall, technicians at Ron Hall Sprinklers (no relation to the author) in Great Falls, MT, spent 44 days winterizing 2,200 systems.

Demand for these services keep growing says President Steve Jonas, now in his 27th year in the industry. Since his market gets an average of just 13 or 14 inches of precipitation annually, irrigation is a must to grow healthy turf and ornamentals.

Jonas says that manufacturers are supplying the innovations and when you add them into the mix of good business practices, everybody wins.

"The new technology is what keeps me in this business," says Jonas. "There's always new things to learn and that's what's fun for me."

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BY ANDY SMITH

While our industry and our customers realize the benefits of healthy landscapes, all of us are almost always late responding to a drought crisis. With the U.S. EPA suggesting as much as half of the water applied to the landscape is wasted, we must take responsibility for the way we use water in the landscape. If we irrigate efficiently (and we have the tools to do that) we will make a big difference for our customers' landscapes and for our businesses.

Governments, be they local, regional or national, develop public policy slowly — that is, until there's a crisis; then things move fast. That's when the highly visible Green Industry is in the most danger. The typical, and usually first, governmental knee-jerk reaction to a water crisis is to target landscape water use.

How do we prevent this? We do this by reducing water waste, and encouraging planning and policy that identifies and rewards efficient water use, penalizes water waste and balances infrastructure with the overall need, including the landscape. Many of these planning discussions are in progress now. We still have an opportunity to provide input and participate in the process. We must participate.

As with too little water, too much precipitation isn't a good thing for our industry either. Texas, extremely dry until this year, is recording one of its wettest years on record. When the rain is falling consumers don't think about irrigation, including adding a new system or upgrading an existing system. Many irrigation contractors there are having a tough time this season, too.

But the wet weather hasn't stopped policy makers there from continuing to plan for "normal weather." Cities such as San Antonio and Austin continue to craft policy aimed at reducing water waste in the landscape through modifications to local ordinances. In a related matter, the State of Texas has passed legislation giving local lawmakers the authority to enforce the rules of the Texas irrigator's license.

Taking the larger view, the U.S. EPA's WaterSense program is a partnership with several water user groups, including the irrigation industry. Its goal is to "foster an ethic of water efficiency." The irrigation industry has developed the Smart Water Application Technologies (SWAT) initiative to achieve exceptional landscape water use efficiency through the application of irrigation technology. The objectives for irrigation in such programs are simple.

• only apply the necessary amount of water for turf and landscape health
• eliminate runoff and deep percolation and
• consider alternative water sources such as treated effluent, captured rain water or storm water.