Irrigation Show sees attendance bump with trip to Las Vegas.
Last month, more than 3,100 irrigation professionals attended the 2016 Irrigation Show in Las Vegas—a 14 percent increase over 2015. And those numbers don’t include registrants from the National Groundwater Association, which was co-located with the Irrigation Show, nearly doubling the size of the show floor.
The general session on Dec. 8 took the shape of a morning talk show this year. Irrigation Association (IA) President Jay Robbins, president of Irrigation-Mart, and IA CEO Deborah Hamlin honored the following recipients of 2016 IA awards:
- Crawford Reid Memorial Award: Andrii Gogolev, TerraTarsa;
- Industry Achievement Award: Inge Bisconer, The Toro Co.;
- National Water and Energy Conservation Award: Texas Alliance for Water Conservation;
- Partner of the Year Award: Irrigation Training and Research Center; and
- Person of the Year Award: Richard Allen, PhD., University of Idaho Kimberly Research and Extension Center.
Robbins and Hamlin also presented elements of the association’s new strategic plan, such as a new focus on workforce development.
New Product Contest
IA leaders also announced the winners of the New Product Contest. The annual contest highlights products introduced to the market in the last year in agriculture, landscape and specialty categories.
Each entry is judged by a panel of industry experts on “changed for the better” qualities, increased water efficiency, ease of use, cost benefits, time savings and design quality. The winners relevant to landscape, irrigation and lighting contractors include:
1. Landscape Irrigation
Winner: Hydro-Rain
Product Name: Hydro-Rain HRC 400 B-hyve Pro Wi-Fi Controller with Smart Meter Link
This SWAT-tested and EPA WaterSense-labeled controller offers an integrated irrigation audit tool. The Smart Meter Link gives customers water usage reports to help them make better water-saving decisions.
2. Specialty-Landscape
Winner: MiniTrencher
Product Name: GeoRipper
The GeoRipper is a handheld portable trencher that can cut trenches up to 1.5 inches wide and 27 inches deep. It’s ideal for short and hard-to-reach places that are difficult for normal trenchers, saving time and labor.
3. Landscape Lighting
Winner: Illumicare Group Ltd.
Product Name: LED MR 16 Single Lens with Replaceable Optics
Using 85 percent less energy than traditional lamps and lasting 15 times longer, this MR 16 LED single lens lamp has the option of four beam spreads and two color temperatures.
4. People’s Choice Award: Landscape Products
Winner: Netafim USA
Product Name: Techline HCVXR
This new dripline that provides root intrusion resistance. The check valve holds back 8.5 feet of water, while the antisiphon feature protects against debris entering the emitter at system shutdown.
5. People’s Choice Award: Landscape Lighting
Winner: Sollos Landscape Lighting
Product Name: DecoStrand
A decorative accent strand lighting for indoor and outdoor applications, the string lighting is 52 feet long with 25 medium base sockets with more than 60 lamp options available.
Product ideas on deck
A new event at this year’s Irrigation Show was the IA Pitcher’s Mound, an event modeled after ABC’s popular “Shark Tank,” where six entrepreneurs had a chance to make a 10-minute pitch to a panel of irrigation experts, including Weathermatic CEO Mike Mason and Hunter Industries President Greg Hunter, and an audience of trade show attendees. Several products were lauded as promising, such as the patent-pending drip tubing decoupling tool by Thomas Deane of LucyCo, which is designed to easily remove tubing from compression-type fittings, reducing labor and allowing the fittings to be reused.
