2012 First-Class Forever Stamp,Earthscapes: Center-Pivot Irrigation
# 4710h - 2012 First-Class Forever Stamp - Earthscapes: Center-Pivot Irrigation
$2.25 - $3.75
U.S. #4710h
2012 45¢ Center-Pivot Irrigation
Earthscapes
2012 45¢ Center-Pivot Irrigation
Earthscapes
Issue Date: October 1, 2012
City: Washington, DC
City: Washington, DC
Quantity: 2,670,000
Printed By: Banknote Corporation of America, Sennett Security Products
Printing Method: Offset
Perforations: Die Cut 10 ¾
Color: multicolored
Airline passengers flying over the Midwest are likely to see the results of center-pivot irrigation. Mile-wide circles have replaced traditional rectangular fields in many areas.
Frank Zybach invented a revolutionary way to irrigate the crops on his Colorado farm without the labor-intensive methods of the past. By 1949, he had devised a system of five towers on wheels that rotated around a central well and watered 40 acres. In 1952, he received a patent for the “Zybach Self-Propelled Sprinkling Apparatus,” now known as center-pivot irrigation.
As Zybach and his business partners improved the design of his system, farmers began watering their fields in the new way. In 1976, Scientific American magazine said this innovation in irrigation was as significant as “the replacement of draft animals by the tractor.”
Because the water is delivered right above the crops, less is evaporated into the air. An irrigation worker can now tend about four times as many acres, and the soil does not erode as it did with traditional forms of irrigation.
Center-pivot irrigation has come a long way from the humble beginnings in Zybach’s workshop to the computer-controlled systems of today.
U.S. #4710h
2012 45¢ Center-Pivot Irrigation
Earthscapes
2012 45¢ Center-Pivot Irrigation
Earthscapes
Issue Date: October 1, 2012
City: Washington, DC
City: Washington, DC
Quantity: 2,670,000
Printed By: Banknote Corporation of America, Sennett Security Products
Printing Method: Offset
Perforations: Die Cut 10 ¾
Color: multicolored
Airline passengers flying over the Midwest are likely to see the results of center-pivot irrigation. Mile-wide circles have replaced traditional rectangular fields in many areas.
Frank Zybach invented a revolutionary way to irrigate the crops on his Colorado farm without the labor-intensive methods of the past. By 1949, he had devised a system of five towers on wheels that rotated around a central well and watered 40 acres. In 1952, he received a patent for the “Zybach Self-Propelled Sprinkling Apparatus,” now known as center-pivot irrigation.
As Zybach and his business partners improved the design of his system, farmers began watering their fields in the new way. In 1976, Scientific American magazine said this innovation in irrigation was as significant as “the replacement of draft animals by the tractor.”
Because the water is delivered right above the crops, less is evaporated into the air. An irrigation worker can now tend about four times as many acres, and the soil does not erode as it did with traditional forms of irrigation.
Center-pivot irrigation has come a long way from the humble beginnings in Zybach’s workshop to the computer-controlled systems of today.