The initial cost will be repaid in less than 5 years, a 14.8% return on investment. After the initial cost is recovered the farmer will be putting that $3,500 in his pocket. I’d say that’s a very affordable system.

But looking at what is involved, not much more than a small turbine fitted to a hydraulic pump, I’d say that a good deal of the $17k went into design, not the system itself. Additional units should be considerably less expensive.

“low cost water-powered turbine that generates electricity for the irrigation system”

But then it talks about …

“water enters his new system it travels through the vanes of the turbine (Fig. 1), causing the turbine to spin and turn a hydraulic pump that pumps hydraulic fluid through gears that turn the wheels, moving the long irrigation boom around the circle”

The Farm Press must have picked up this article somewhere else, there’s the “Fig.1″ but no figure on their page and I find no link to the original article.