The Rancho California Water District was awarded a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's water conservation field services program for a demonstration study using a weather-based irrigation controller to improve irrigation efficiency at avocado groves, but local growers are skeptical.

The district partnered with the California Avocado Commission and Petaluma-based HydroPoint Data Systems Inc.

HydroPoint invented the WeatherTRAK irrigation controller.

Growers are leery of the technology.

"One of the biggest problems we're going to have is putting all the hardware into the valves," said Ben Drake, a local avocado grower. "It's not like a small landscape; it's a nightmare."

The WeatherTRAK system has yet to be installed in an avocado grove. The grant was based on data provided by the water district and HydroPoint.

The WeatherTRAK system allows for real-time, online irrigation control by way of a secure Web site.

With smart controllers, irrigation needs - frequency of irrigation, start time and duration of water --are precisely scheduled, thus promoting irrigation efficiency.

Drake has experience with controllers but has not used the WeatherTRAK system on any of his crops.

But if properly implemented, the system could yield water savings, he said.

"I see a saving, probably not during the middle of the summer because we're trying to put as much water on as we can in the hot months," he said. "But in the early spring and in the fall when we start getting cooler temperatures."

Smart controllers, like WeatherTRAK, are capable of matching water application with changing crop water needs.

"The specific sites have not been chosen yet, we're going to choose specific avocado sites to use them on," said Meggan Reed, a spokeswoman for Rancho California Water District. "The money will be spent on controllers themselves and also on the installation."

The WeatherTRAK controller will be installed by a yet-to-be selected third party contractor.

Forty-eight percent of Rancho California's water service is to the agricultural community.

The goal of the study is to demonstrate to avocado growers that smart controllers will provide water savings while maintaining crop health fruit production.

The study will compare water use and fruit yield from five treatments: four with smart controllers set at varying crop water demands and one treatment with no smart controllers serving as a control.

The control treatment will provide baseline data to calculate water savings information.

The project will include workshops to teach farmers about water conservation, irrigation efficiency and to present the study results.

Rancho California Water District is one of 26 member agencies that receive surplus water from Metropolitan Water District as part of its interim agriculture water program.

The Rancho district obtains more than 50% of its water from both the Eastern and Western municipal water districts, both participate in the water program.

Water obtained through the program is used for landscape; the water used through the WeatherTRAK program is strictly for avocados, Reed said.

The program is designed to communicate with satellites to monitor weather changes in the area, another aspect some growers oppose.

"We're going to need some local weather stations and soil devices to figure out how much moisture is left in the ground," Drake said. "If I underwater avocados, I don't have any income."