Irrigation Efficiency Programme

IRRIGATION EFFICINECY PROGRAMME FIELD DAY WILL BE HELD ON 19 JANUARY 2012 AT"KEYTAH", MOREE

Innovation in irrigation to be demonstrated at Keytah, Moree - link to Media on field day

Link to agenda

To assist with catering, people intending to attend are requested to contact Zara Lowien on 02 6752 1399 or 0427 521 399.

Project Background

In 2008 the GVIA received funding from the Australian Government as represented by the National Water Commission, to undertake a water efficiency project aimed at improving irrigation efficiency in the Australian cotton industry, primarily in North West NSW. The funding was provided to implement a series of irrigation comparison trials, designed and coordinated by growers for growers. 

The project is a comparative trial over two seasons, which was conducted at “Keytah”, with the support of the Sundown Pastoral Company.  The trial looks at the relative water-use efficiency of four irrigation systems in a cotton production system. The four systems were Drip, Lateral, Optimised Furrow and Bankless Channel.

The trial aims to help growers make more educated decisions on their irrigation practices and in turn maximise their productivity per megalitre.  As many variables as possible have been removed to ensure that final results are only affected by system characteristics.

The first year of the trial was in the 2009/10 season with a number of key considerations:

• The trial team were highly experienced in furrow systems, had a couple of years experience with lateral moves systems, and virtually no experience with drip and bankless channel systems.
• Due to the extensive and late nature of earth moving works, the bankless channel system was significantly disadvantaged because of poor soil structure.
• The results are for one year only, and clearly apply to the soil types and other conditions that were present at the “Keytah” trial site.

2009/10 Trial Products

All systems brochure

Furrow brochure

Bankless chanel brochure

Lateral brochure

Drip brochure

A DVD on trial results is also available on request

Trial replication is under way in the 2011/12 season with lessons learnt captured from the first year incorporated into project development for the final season.

A variation of the original project outline provided the opportunity to support the Water Regime and Row Configuration trial at "Redbank", Moree in the off-season of the "Keytah" trial.  This large scale irrigation experiment was established to determine whether alternative planting configurations such as single and double skip, generate more bales per megalitre in years where water is limited. Three water treatments (full, semi, limited) were implemented across the different plant configurations to establish the relationship between crop stress and yield.

The concept and implementation of the experiment was initiated by GVIA, Australian Food & Fibre Limited, ICMS Pty Ltd (Integrated Crop Management Services), Cotton Seed Distributors and CSIRO. Irrigation extension and technical support was also provided by NSW Department of Primary Industry. Funding from the National Water Commission and the generous donation of the Smart Crop sensors by Smart Field enabled the experiment to be fully instrumented and managed with a fully replicated trial design.

The funding provided by the National Water Commission assisted the project steering group to better resource the trial throughout the growing season. 

Final results of the Water Regime and Row Configuration trial can be viewed here.