May 2025

Here at Hoover, we're always excited to see others in Florida realize the power of smart irrigation, and this month, it's melon farmers leading the way! Just in time for peak watermelon season, the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) assessed watermelon growers in the Suwannee Valley. The big news? Using smart tech for irrigation helped these farmers save an astounding 164 million gallons of water in one year. It’s estimated that if all watermelon farmers in the region adopted this tech, over 8,000 acres, the savings would hit more than 696 million gallons.

Beyond water conservation, farmers are also seeing personal benefits, with 89% averaging 1.7 fewer hours in the field each day. As one farmer put it, "Farmers can irrigate their fields while sitting on a beach on an island somewhere. All they need is an internet connection."

We've consistently highlighted the threats to Florida's coral reefs, but this month brings truly good news! This story is all about "coral babies" – young coral born from colonies rescued from the seabed during a record bleaching event two years ago. These corals, which would have bleached or died in place, thrived in cooler lab waters.

Now, these precious coral babies are being transported to the Florida Keys, ready for offshore planting or further nurturing in the lab. Scientists are calling this project a modern-day Noah's Ark for coral. The goal is to cultivate coral babies with the resilience needed to survive 21st-century conditions, ultimately revitalizing a natural resource that provides coastal protection, marine habitats, and attracts tourists and anglers.

From baby coral to "super clams" and the "Billion Clam Initiative," clever solutions are emerging to clean up environmental messes using nature's own resources.

This initiative focuses on the Indian River Lagoon, which has suffered from decades of pollution. Drones are now deploying millions of genetically selected "super clams" into the lagoon. These hardy filter feeders are expected to clear algae and excess nutrients from the water. The project began by taking the toughest clams to a lab, then transplanting their offspring back into the lagoon's least healthy areas.

With an average lifespan of 15 years, it's hoped this initiative will provide a long-term solution for the Indian River Lagoon and other ailing Florida waterways.

Our  earlier story looked at a scheme which uses ‘super clams’ to deal with the issue of too much algae in the water. This story also covers the problems posed by algae but offers another solution altogether – turning the algae into sustainable energy. The algae in question is in Lake Bonnet, and is just one example of a problem which is being made worse across multiple lakes in Florida by steadily rising temperatures and higher levels of nutrients present in the water. Once present in the water, algae is extremely harmful to the native wildlife and has even been known to poison dogs that come into contact with it.

Technicians at Lake Bonnet have patented an algae harvesting process which utilizes AI to track the presence of algae in the lake and then ‘scrapes’ the algae from the top layer of the water. Once it’s been harvested, the algae is repurposed and used to make sustainable aviation fuel and sustainable diesel fuel. The hope is that the technology used to repurpose algae will also, at some point, be able to do the same for food waste and sargassum.

The long term hope is that the technology can be scaled up and rolled out for use in larger bodies of water across Florida and the rest of the US.

The pH level of the water in an irrigation lake is one of the fundamental measures of its health and condition. Put simply, pH is an indicator of the acidity or alkalinity of the water in the lake.

While the science behind pH levels can quickly become quite complicated, keeping an irrigation lake healthy depends on the right pH. pH is measured on a scale, in a similar way to temperature.

The lower the pH number of lake water is, the more acid there is in the water, while a higher number indicates water which is more alkaline. Alkaline water is often referred to as basic water. A pH number of 7 is neutral, which means that the acidity and alkalinity levels are in balance, and it's the pH number you would expect a sample of completely ‘pure’ water to score.

Bottom line, irrigation lake water quality matters to your entire irrigation system and to the health of your landscape. We discuss why in this article.

Offering expertise in irrigation means having to know a great deal about plant life and what it needs, and one of the lessons we’ve learned time and time again in the H₂O Zone is that there is such a thing as a Florida Friendly Landscape (FFL). This story looks at efforts made by Leon County’s Florida Yards and Neighborhoods (FYN) program to help homeowners make their landscaping and lawn care more environmentally friendly, using plants that thrive in Florida's climate.

The exciting part of the story is that these efforts go beyond simply printing up leaflets or uploading pages of online advice. If you’re lucky enough you can take advantage of advice offered in the form of a personal visit from a Master Gardener Volunteer (MGV) team.

During this visit the team of experts will tour your yard, take notes and –with permission – photographs, and then prepare a comprehensive report outlining the steps you can take to align your yard with FFL principles. The aims of the FFL approach include reducing the use of potable irrigation water, minimizing harmful runoff and providing a habitat for wildlife.

By the way, you can learn more about the 9 founding principles of FFL on the University of Florida website.

We've already seen how melon farmers are turning to technology to run their irrigation systems, saving both time and water, but this story proves that they aren’t the only farmers keen to embrace the latest in technology.

The Southwest Florida Research and Education Center in Immokalee showcased a range of high tech solutions which could help farmers to do more with less. Options included pest control drones, intelligent robots that target weeds with high precision and AI chatbots that map the health of the soil.

With the cost of labor and materials rising, the aim of all of these tools can be summarized in two simple words – precision management. For example, hand weeding can cost several hundred dollars an acre, while a smart solution might perform the same task for tens of dollars an acre. The goal of these use cases is to ensure these solutions have practical, real-world applications that genuinely solve problems farmers face.