- What CID-AG Actually Is
- The Two-Exam Pathway
- The 20 Domains Across Three Outlines
- General Agriculture: Where Every Candidate Starts
- Choosing Sprinkler or Drip/Micro
- Format, Calculators and Test-Day Rules
- Fees, Retakes and Renewal
- Experience Guidance and Who Pursues It
- Sequencing Your Preparation
- Frequently Asked Questions
- CID-AG is the Irrigation Association's Certified Irrigation Designer credential, agriculture track, earned through two exams rather than one.
- You take General Agriculture plus either Sprinkler or Drip/Micro, and both must be passed within three years of application.
- Sprinkler Type alone is weighted 40%-50% on the Sprinkler exam, so that specialty rewards deep design knowledge.
- Initial fees run $250 per exam for members and $495 for nonmembers; retakes are $200 and $325.
What CID-AG Actually Is
CID-AG, as used on this site, means Certified Irrigation Designer - Agriculture. It is awarded by the Irrigation Association (IA), and the official credential is the Certified Irrigation Designer (CID) with an agriculture track. The "AG" label is simply the routing key we use to separate this track from the landscape and turf-oriented designer paths. If you have seen the same letters attached to unrelated certifications elsewhere, set those aside: nothing in this article applies to them.
The credential signals that a person can design agricultural irrigation systems competently: sizing pumps, calculating friction losses, matching emitters or sprinklers to crop and soil conditions, scheduling water, and judging the economics of a design. It is a design credential, which means the questions lean toward calculation and decision-making rather than memorization of definitions.
If you are still orienting yourself, the related explainers on what CID-AG stands for and the CID-AG certification cover the naming and credential basics, while this article focuses on how the pathway is built and what it asks of you.
The Two-Exam Pathway
The single most important structural fact about CID-AG is that it is not one unified exam. You earn it by passing two separate tests: a General Agriculture exam that everyone takes, and one specialty exam that you choose.
| Component | Questions | Time Allowance |
|---|---|---|
| General Agriculture (required) | 150 | 4 hours |
| Sprinkler specialty (option A) | 50 | 4 hours |
| Drip/Micro specialty (option B) | 75 | 4 hours |
| Total with Sprinkler | 200 | 8 hours aggregate |
| Total with Drip/Micro | 225 | 8 hours aggregate |
The eight-hour figure is an aggregate allowance across two sittings, not a single eight-hour session. Each exam carries its own four-hour limit. Both exams must be passed within three years of your application, so you have room to sequence them, but not unlimited time to drift.
The 20 Domains Across Three Outlines
The published content areas are split into three outlines. Entries 1-7 belong to General Agriculture, entries 8-16 to Drip/Micro, and entries 17-20 to Sprinkler. Because some topic names repeat across outlines (Hydraulics, Pumps, Scheduling, and others), it helps to keep track of which exam a given weighting belongs to. For a deeper walk through each area, see the complete guide to all 20 CID-AG content areas.
General Agriculture (Domains 1-7)
- Domain 1: Pumps (15%-20%)
- Domain 2: Hydraulics (20%-25%)
- Domain 3: Economics (5%-10%)
- Domain 4: Soil-Water-Plant Relations (15%-20%)
- Domain 5: Scheduling (10%-15%)
- Domain 6: Efficiency/Uniformity (10%-15%)
- Domain 7: System Components (10%-15%)
Drip/Micro Specialty (Domains 8-16)
- Domain 8: System Design/Economics (20%-25%)
- Domain 9: Hydraulics (15%-20%)
- Domain 10: Filtration (15%-20%)
- Domain 11: Emitting Devices (5%-10%)
- Domain 12: Injection (5%-10%)
- Domain 13: Soil-Water-Plant Relations (5%-10%)
- Domain 14: Scheduling (5%-10%)
- Domain 15: Efficiency/Uniformity (10%-15%)
- Domain 16: Pumps (1%-5%)
Sprinkler Specialty (Domains 17-20)
- Domain 17: Pumps and Power (15%-20%)
- Domain 18: Hydraulics (20%-25%)
- Domain 19: Scheduling (10%-15%)
- Domain 20: Sprinkler Type (40%-50%)
The official percentages are ranges, and they are best read as relative emphasis rather than exact question counts. The pattern worth noticing is that hydraulics shows up in all three outlines at or near the top of the weighting, and that the Sprinkler exam concentrates nearly half its weight in a single area.
General Agriculture: Where Every Candidate Starts
The 150-question General Agriculture exam is the larger of the two tests, and it covers the shared engineering and agronomy foundation that applies regardless of whether you later specialize in sprinklers or drip.
Hydraulics (20%-25%)
The heaviest General Agriculture area. Expect calculation-driven questions about moving water through pipe networks.
- Friction loss in mainlines and laterals
- Pressure and flow relationships across elevation changes
- Pipe sizing tradeoffs between cost and energy
Pumps (15%-20%)
Pump selection and operation as part of a complete system.
- Matching pump performance to system demand
- Reading and applying pump curves
- Power and energy considerations
Soil-Water-Plant Relations (15%-20%)
The agronomic reasoning behind every design decision.
- Soil water holding characteristics and infiltration
- Crop water use and root zone management
- How soil type constrains application rate and timing
Scheduling, Efficiency/Uniformity, and System Components each carry 10%-15%, while Economics sits at 5%-10%. Do not dismiss the smaller areas: a 150-question exam gives even a modest weighting a meaningful number of items. The CID-AG study guide maps these areas into a preparation plan.
Choosing Sprinkler or Drip/Micro
Your specialty choice shapes both the length and the character of your second exam. The two options are not equivalent in structure.
| Factor | Sprinkler | Drip/Micro |
|---|---|---|
| Question count | 50 | 75 |
| Number of content areas | 4 | 9 |
| Dominant area | Sprinkler Type (40%-50%) | System Design/Economics (20%-25%) |
| Unique topics | Sprinkler Type, Pumps and Power | Filtration, Emitting Devices, Injection |
The Sprinkler exam is shorter but concentrated: with Sprinkler Type at 40%-50%, a candidate who knows sprinkler categories, their operating characteristics, and where each fits will capture a large share of the exam. The Drip/Micro exam is broader, spreading questions across filtration, emitting devices, injection, and design economics, so it rewards range over depth in a single area.
Format, Calculators and Test-Day Rules
Questions are multiple choice. Testing takes place at Kryterion testing centers, with selected IA paper-and-pencil administrations also offered. At-home proctoring has not been verified, so plan for a testing-center experience. See CID-AG exam dates and scheduling for how to approach timing.
- Closed book: You get provided formula material and scratch paper, so you need not memorize every equation, but you must know which formula applies and how to use it.
- Calculators: Silent, battery-powered, nonprinting calculators are permitted, including programmable models. Phone, tablet, and watch calculators are not allowed.
- Breaks: Breaks do not stop the clock, so any time away from your seat comes out of your four hours.
Because the exam is closed book with supplied formulas, speed and fluency matter more than recall. Practice with the same style of calculator you will bring, and rehearse working multi-step hydraulics problems on scratch paper under time pressure.
Passing standard
There is no single universal cutoff. The passing standard is form-dependent and usually falls in the 70%-75% range. Details on how that plays out are in the CID-AG passing score guide, and the broader question of difficulty is covered in how hard the CID-AG exam is.
Fees, Retakes and Renewal
Costs are per exam, so the two-exam structure effectively doubles the initial outlay compared with a single-test credential.
| Item | IA Member | Nonmember |
|---|---|---|
| Initial fee, per exam | $250 | $495 |
| Calculated two-exam total | $500 | $990 |
| Retake, per exam | $200 | $325 |
| Annual renewal | $75 | $125 |
An additional certification adds $25 to renewal. Since the nonmember premium on initial fees is substantial, it is worth checking whether membership pays for itself before you register. A full breakdown lives in the CID-AG certification cost guide.
Staying certified
Renewal is annual, and continuing education is measured on a two-year cycle: 20 CEUs per two years, including a minimum of 10 irrigation-related CEUs and at least 5 Tier 1/water-efficient CEUs. Plan your continuing education around those two minimums rather than treating the 20-CEU total as the only target.
Experience Guidance and Who Pursues It
Experience and education are recommended, not mandatory. The handbook suggests three years in the field, or two years in the field plus one related educational year. No required prep course, degree, or reference count has been identified. In practice that means you can sit for the exams without meeting the suggested threshold, but candidates with field time will find the design and scheduling questions far more intuitive. For eligibility specifics, see the CID-AG requirements guide.
The credential tends to appeal to people whose work involves designing or specifying agricultural irrigation: irrigation designers, dealers and distributors who size systems for growers, consulting engineers, and agronomists or farm managers who want formal recognition of design competence. Employers value it as an objective marker that a designer understands hydraulics, pumping, and water management rather than just product catalogs. For market context, browse CID-AG jobs, the salary guide, and the ROI analysis.
Sequencing Your Preparation
Because the pathway is two exams, the useful planning question is order and emphasis, not generic study habits. One workable approach is to build the shared foundation first, since hydraulics and pumps recur across all three outlines.
Hydraulics and Pumps First
- Hydraulics is the top-weighted area in General Agriculture and in Sprinkler, and a major area in Drip/Micro
- Drill friction loss and pump curve problems until they are routine
Soil-Water-Plant, Scheduling, Efficiency
- Connect soil properties to application rate and timing
- Work uniformity and efficiency calculations
System Components and Economics
- Cover the smaller General Agriculture areas, then sit for that exam while it is fresh
Your Specialty
- Sprinkler: concentrate on Sprinkler Type, which carries 40%-50%
- Drip/Micro: prioritize System Design/Economics, Hydraulics, and Filtration
Finish with timed practice. A quick-reference review such as the CID-AG cheat sheet helps consolidate formulas and facts, and full-length practice questions let you test whether you can hold pace across a four-hour session. If you want realistic repetition on the calculation-heavy areas, the CID-AG practice test site is built for that.
Key Takeaway
Treat CID-AG as two projects: a broad General Agriculture foundation anchored in hydraulics, pumps, and soil-water-plant relations, and a focused specialty exam. Choose the specialty you can reason about from real field situations, and register with the member-versus-nonmember fee gap in mind.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. It is a two-exam pathway. You take General Agriculture (150 questions, 4 hours) plus either Sprinkler (50 questions, 4 hours) or Drip/Micro (75 questions, 4 hours). Both must be passed within three years of application.
No. The 20 entries come from three separate outlines: General Agriculture (1-7), Drip/Micro (8-16), and Sprinkler (17-20). You prepare for General Agriculture plus only the specialty outline you select.
Initial fees are $250 per exam for members and $495 for nonmembers, for a calculated two-exam total of $500 or $990. Retakes are $200 for members and $325 for nonmembers, per exam.
Yes, with limits. Silent, battery-powered, nonprinting calculators are allowed, including programmable models. Phone, tablet, and watch calculators are not permitted. The exam is closed book, with formula material and scratch paper provided.
Renew annually ($75 member, $125 nonmember, plus $25 for an additional certification) and earn 20 CEUs per two years, including at least 10 irrigation-related and 5 Tier 1/water-efficient CEUs.