Poly Punch Awarded $1.23 Million USDA NRCS Conservation Innovation Grant
Three-year trial will seek to reduce groundwater usage by establishing precision-punched poly pipe on row crop farms in Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana.
Precision Flow Technologies, LLC, the company commercializing the Poly Punch automated hole-punch system developed at Mississippi State University, has been awarded $1,230,510 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) through the fiscal year 2026 Conservation Innovation Grants (CIG) program. The award, made in the CIG On-Farm Trials category, funds a three-year project titled “Automated Precision Hole-Punching for Poly Pipe Furrow Irrigation: On-Farm Trials of the Poly Punch System for Irrigation Water Management of the Mississippi River Alluvial Aquifer Region.”
USDA announced the awards on Oct. 23, 2026, as part of a $65 million investment in 34 Conservation Innovation Grants projects that develop new tools, approaches, practices and technologies for conserving natural resources on private lands. Precision Flow Technologies’ project is one of 16 selected in the On-Farm Trials category, which receives up to $50 million and pairs partners with producers to adopt and evaluate innovative approaches, with incentive payments to offset the risk of trying something new. CIG is funded through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), which was expanded under the Working Families Tax Cuts Act.
In announcing the awards, NRCS Chief Colton L. Buckley said Conservation Innovation Grants “help turn innovative ideas into practical conservation solutions.” The full list of FY 2026 awards is available on the NRCS website.
The trial will place prescription-programmed, pre-punched poly pipe on EQIP-eligible row crop operations across the Mississippi Delta, scaling from 10 farms in the first year to 50 by the end of year three. Participating producers, primarily growing corn, soybeans, rice and cotton under furrow irrigation, will receive cash incentive payments and pre-punched pipe to move from manual hole-punching to precision-hole irrigation. Pump hours, water use, labor and crop yield will be measured against each farm’s baseline, with a target of at least a 15% reduction in pumping time on 70% or more.
Furrow irrigation with lay-flat poly pipe is the dominant irrigation method for row crops in the Mid-South, covering an estimated 1.5 million irrigated acres in Mississippi alone. Holes are still typically punched by hand, by crews of three to five workers using spike tools on pressurized pipe. The result is irregular, inconsistently sized holes that force excess pumping from the Mississippi River Alluvial Aquifer, the Delta’s primary irrigation source, which is losing an estimated 300,000 acre-feet of water per year.
Poly Punch was built to solve that problem. Developed by Dr. Drew Gholson and Dr. Wes Lowe at Mississippi State University, the patent-pending system reads Computerized Hole Selection (CHS) prescriptions and punches clean, variable-size holes at exact prescribed locations with no hand labor.
Research shows CHS prescriptions can cut water use per acre by about 21%, but manually punching the holes can lead to inconsistent hole sizes and is a labor intensive process. That’s where the Poly Punch automated hole punching system fits in, allowing growers to feed their CHS prescriptions through a machine that punches precise holes.
“Computerized hole selection has already proven it can save water, but hole punching has always been the bottleneck,” said Dr. Drew Gholson, Co-Vice President and Technical Lead of Precision Flow Technologies. “This trial will give producers and NRCS rigorous, multi-farm data on what precise holes do for pump hours, water use and yields.”
“When I first heard about this idea from Drew and Wes I knew this had the potential to address a real need for farmers in the Delta”, said Frank Brumfield, an investor in Poly Punch and founder of FSB Companies. “We’ve received considerable interest from growers who are excited about the potential of this technology. Earlier this spring, 35 producers came to our showcase at Delta Grain, and the feedback we received was tremendous. This trial gives growers a low-risk way to see the water and labor savings on their own farms.”
Precision Flow Technologies is enrolling producers for the upcoming trial season, with recruitment coordinated by business development lead John Stratton through MSU Extension, co-ops and grower associations. Results will be shared through field days at participating Delta farms, regional conference presentations and MSU Extension publications. EQIP-eligible row crop producers in Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana who furrow irrigate with poly pipe can learn more at [email protected] or 662-374- 0793.
This work is supported by the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) through its Conservation Innovation Grants (CIG) funding.
