Nebraska leads the nation in total irrigated acres, but trails in using solar energy to power the pumps.
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By The Numbers
Of approximately 55 million acres under irrigation nationally, about 15 percent are located in Nebraska. Between the 2002 and 2007 agricultural census years, Nebraska’s irrigated base expanded by 934,000 acres. As of 2007, Nebraska had 8.56 million irrigated acres. About three out of eight cropland acres in Nebraska are under irrigation.
The bulk of irrigation in Nebraska (and essentially all of the more recent expansion) is pumped from wells. As of December 2010, there were more than 107,000 registered irrigation wells in the state. Four out of five acres under irrigation in Nebraska are irrigated with sprinkler systems. Center pivot irrigation systems constitute nearly 98 percent of the acres under sprinkler irrigation in the state. An estimated 55,000 center pivot systems are being used in Nebraska to irrigate about 6.7 million acres.
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