Springville Irrigation Company Helps Farmers, Landscapers in Drought-Hit States

SPRINGVILLE, Utah – A Springville supplier of sprinkler and irrigation equipment has found an oasis during the ongoing drought by helping with water conservation efforts in parts of the Intermountain West.

Harward Irrigation Systems, which began as a home-based reseller of irrigation equipment in the 1960s, has mushroomed into a 100-worker major supplier of sprinkler and irrigation systems to farms, landscapers and government agencies.

Founded in 1974, the company – a brainchild of Ritch Harward – began as a reseller of agricultural irrigation equipment for a Logan-based company called Bullens. But as the family-owned business grew in the 1980s, it began buying directly from equipment manufacturers. In the mid-'80s, following growing demand from orchard farms and the golf course industry, Harward Irrigation diversified into designing, supplying and installing lawn sprinklers and orchard irrigation systems.

In 2002, the company built a 49,000-square-foot office building at 940 S. 2000 West in Springville, which houses its corporate headquarters and manufacturing plant today. It also leases part of the property to companies such as Heritage Makers and Prudential Real Estate.

Randall Harward, Ritch's nephew and an agricultural economics and business management graduate from Brigham Young University (BYU), took over the business in 1975 after winning a coin toss with his twin brother, Richard, over who should join the family business at that time, or stay in college and come on board later.

In hindsight, Richard, also an agricultural economics and business management graduate from BYU, said the coin toss worked out because his brother helped improve the technical and engineering design of its irrigation systems.

"To design a sprinkler system, you have to know the soil type, the holding capacity of the soil, the intake rate or how fast water seeps into the soil, and the elevation of the land," Randall said. "It takes at least 15 manufacturers to provide the parts we need to design and assemble one system."

Some irrigation system makers lack the technical expertise or comprehensiveness of design in their systems – a flaw Harward Irrigation has parlayed to its advantage, he said.
"Many contractors know where to place a lawn sprinkler system, but most don't know how much water it is actually applying," Randall said.

That usually leads to overwatering, a problem that's especially critical in drought-hit states such as Utah, he said. Typically, most lawns need only 2 inches of water per week in summer. "But on average, people tend to irrigate their lawns two to three times more than they need to," he said.
To improve water management and conservation, the company's customized lawn sprinkler systems include internal clocks or controllers that measure outside temperatures and humidity and determine how much and whether to irrigate or not.

"We help people determine the water application rates, how much water the nozzles put out and how much water needs to be applied to the ground. Our competitors don't do that," he said.

Similarly, Richard said the company's drip irrigation products can help farmers double and triple water efficiency during the drought by applying water evenly on crops.

"The traditional method of irrigation on farms is flood irrigation, where the farmer would take water from ditches, canals and wells, and run it out on the field through furrows in the ground," Richard said. "Our drip system controls the amount of water applied to the field and targets water to the crop for thousands of acres of ground."

Harward Irrigation receives the bulk of its business during the months of March through October when farmers in Utah, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Idaho and Oregon start preparing their fields for crop irrigation from April through June.

Another portion of its business comes from the landscaping industry, where contractors install sprinkler systems for homeowners, businesses and schools including BYU and Utah Valley State College.

But the company also has its share of challenges, Richard said. High steel and aluminum prices have caused prices of irrigation equipment like pivots and wheel lines to spike up over the past year.

"Pivots are made of steel, and because of China's strong demand for steel, prices of pivots have spiked up to $52,000 apiece from $40,000 over the past year," Richard said. Prices of wheel lines, which are made of aluminum, have jumped to about $10,500 from $8,500 over the past year.

This story originally appeared in The Daily Herald (Utah) on page E1. The author is Business Editor of The Daily Herald.