 Irrigation of cropland can be traced back thousands of years to farmers in Asia and Africa. In the U.S., early pioneers carted barrels of water from nearby streams to keep the crops from burning up. History shows irrigation was rarely used in the U.S. until about 1890, when farmers in Nebraska and Colorado, out of necessity, began experimenting with irrigation systems. In fact, it was a farmer, Frank Zybach, from Colorado, who invented irrigation.