Poly Punch Join the Trial

Optimize Your Irrigation

Poly Punch is enrolling row crop producers in Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana for a three-year, NRCS-funded trial of precision-punched poly pipe. Participating farms get pre-punched pipe, hands-on support and cash incentive payments.

See if your farm qualifies Watch the demo
$1,230,510Awarded by USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service

Grant details

Precision Flow Technologies, the company bringing Poly Punch to market, was one of 16 projects selected nationwide in the CIG On-Farm Trials category. USDA announced the awards on October 23, 2026, as part of a $65 million investment in 34 Conservation Innovation Grants. Our grant pairs us with Delta producers to test precision-hole irrigation on working farms, with incentive payments that offset the risk of trying something new.

See the full list of FY 2026 awards on the NRCS website ↗

3 yearsTrial length across the Mississippi River Alluvial Aquifer region
50Farms enrolled over the three-year trial period
15%+Target cut in pumping time compared with each farm's baseline
70%+Share of participating farms expected to hit that target

This work is supported by the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) through its Conservation Innovation Grants (CIG) funding.

The on-farm trial

Try precision-hole irrigation on your own fields

We bring the pipe, the prescription work and the measuring. See what precise holes do for your pump hours, water, labor and yield.

Who can take part

  • Row crop producers who furrow irrigate with lay-flat poly pipe
  • Farming in Mississippi, Arkansas or Louisiana
  • EQIP-eligible
  • Control of the trial land for the project term
CornSoybeansCotton

Focus areas include the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta (Leflore, Humphreys, Sunflower and Washington counties and nearby), the Arkansas Delta east of Crowley's Ridge, and northern Louisiana's alluvial parishes. Producers who aren't EQIP-eligible can still join the data collection, without incentive payments.

Ask about enrolling

How it works

Hole punching was the bottleneck

Most Mid-South furrow irrigation still runs through hand-punched poly pipe. Crews of three to five people work down pressurized pipe with spike tools, and the holes come out irregular, wrongly sized or poorly spaced. Hand tools come in only a few fixed sizes, so they can't follow a prescription that calls for a different hole at every furrow.

Poly Punch reads your CHS prescription and punches clean, smooth-edged holes of any size at the exact prescribed spots.

Why it matters

The Delta's aquifer is losing about 300,000 acre-feet a year

Mississippi gets 84% of its freshwater from underground aquifers, and roughly 82% of the alluvial valley in the Delta is furrow irrigated. Furrow irrigation covers an estimated 1.5 million acres in Mississippi alone. Uneven holes mean extra pumping from the Mississippi River Alluvial Aquifer, where extraction already outpaces recharge.

From a 2024 survey of 1,000 furrow irrigation producers, run with MSU's National Agri-Marketing Association student team:

70%Want a less labor-intensive way to set up pipe
54%Say poor hole punching forces them to pump extra water
85%Are looking for ways to cut production costs

See it run

Watch Poly Punch in action

Watch the demo on YouTube ↗

In the field

Precision-punched pipe at work

Tractor laying out white poly pipe along a corn field
Long run of poly pipe along a cotton field with water arcing from evenly spaced holes
Close view along muddy poly pipe with streams of water arcing into cotton rows
Single stream of water arcing from the pipe into a cotton furrow

Built at Mississippi State

Researchers who know Delta irrigation

Poly Punch was co-invented by Dr. Drew Gholson and Dr. Wes Lowe at Mississippi State University. Precision Flow Technologies holds the exclusive license to bring it to growers.

"Computerized hole selection has already proven it can save water, but hole punching has always been the bottleneck."
Dr. Drew Gholson, co-founder
Crops you grow