Leader:
(07) 4631 1691
(07) 46311873
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Project Description:
Overview
This project provides research and technical support to Industry Development Officers and South East Queensland (SEQ) Catchments through the Summer Zone of the CRC for Irrigation Futures, which will lead to improved irrigation water use efficiency, benchmarking and best management practices. This will be achieved through focus on a number of priority research areas including:
1. Irrigation management practice and system performance improvements
2. Irrigation scheduling and crop water use
3. Monitoring and measurement for performance benchmarking
4. Water storage and delivery systems
5. Irrigation and nutrient management
6. Improved extension and adoption of best management practices
The research will underpin and support the Industry Groups in benchmarking, development of best management practice and reduction targets and promotion and communication of research outputs.
Objective
The key objective of this project is to provide research and development outcomes that will underpin a 10% improvement in water use efficiency within South-East Queensland.
Strategies
This project is being delivered in partnership with the local horticultural, dairy, turf, nursery and flower industry bodies by:
Providing a basis for changes in on-farm water management practices and/or take-up of more water efficient equipment and operations;
Assisting in the uptake of farm management systems through better definition of best management practices and efficiency targets; and
Improving grower involvement in local on-farm research activities.
Research in this project is conducted within the industry identified priority areas of:
Monitoring tools to improve water use efficiency;
Improved management of irrigated root zones;
Crop water requirements and deficit irrigation; and
Optimising performance and managing in-field variability. |
Progress to Date:
JUNE 2009 UPDATE
The team worked closely with irrigation development officers (IDOs) on more than 16 trial sites throughout SEQ conducting crop water use efficiency and benchmarking studies, crop vigour and EM38 surveys, pressurised irrigation monitoring system (PIMS) testing, monitoring root zone salinity accumulation and nutrient fluxes and developing and supporting a range of monitoring tools that facilitated the objectives. The monitoring tools to improve water use efficiency included: PIMS, Data Signature Logger (Smart water metering), continuous logging tensiometers, soil solute monitoring tools, and weight based irrigation scheduling devices.
Optimising performance and managing infield variability was conducted using vegetative index sensors (Greenseekers(R)) and electromagnetic (EM38) soil surveys for Dairy, Turf and Horticultural industries. This constituted a considerable amount of activity in spatial variability in irrigated production, utilising NDVI to monitor turf production and quality. Data signature logging continually provided useful insights into the operation of sophisticated and simplistic irrigation systems in the floral and horticultural industries. Whilst the use of PIMS in Turf and Dairy implemented significant changes to irrigation infrastructure and irrigation management thought processes. Significant advancements were made in irrigation scheduling and management in the nursery industry under the development of weight based crop water use monitoring. However the research trial to evaluate root zone management under lettuce production was a major undertaking by RADS in 2008/09, the full draft report is under review by our clients prior to dissemination.
Mentoring and training has been an ongoing activity for RADS, although in this last year training and training support was less than in previous years because the demand was reduced. However, mentoring remained active and at the forefront of RADS support as it had been in previous years. Mentoring included; a) Provision of instrumentation advice and field support for installation, maintenance and data acquisition. b) Provision of guidance on strategic data collection and benchmark reporting over project life. c) The incorporation of spatial variability data in to GIS mapping systems. In a similar vein RADS continued discussions on weight based irrigation scheduling development and implementation of collaborative research with DEEDI. Mentoring support often extended to general liaising and coordinating in regard to performance evaluation, software and tools with industry consultants such as Daley Water Services. The various tools and activities have highlighted significant issues with irrigation machines and practices which through mentoring and training have enhanced the IDOs research and extension capacity.
In keeping with the reporting requirements a series if information sheets have been developed and published on the SEQIF website to highlight the tools available to the IDO’s which support their extension work in SEQ.
All outputs have been delivered to the IDO’s for their inclusion in their activities or for discussion with their clients. There have also been a number of opportunities to present the outcomes and activities to industry and catchment stakeholders, one of the most important being the RADS activity presentation at Annual Research Forum for the CRC IF. It aroused considerable interest in the delivery model and the instrumentation developed by RADS.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
The team will develop the next phase, through to 2013, of the project in conjunction with irrigation development officers. The next phase will continue to develop tools and capacity with the dairy, nursery, turf, horticulture and flower industries to improve irrigation management and enterprise productivity and profitability. |
Publications:
| Author
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Title and Published Conference Paper or Workshop Paper
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| Hussain, A., and Raine, S. R. (2008)
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A preliminary evaluation of the potential to use electromagnetic induction to assess sprinkler irrigation performance in horticultural crops
First Global Workshop on Digital Soil Sensing and Mapping
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| Hussain, A., Raine, S. R. and Henderson, C. W. (2008)
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Preliminary evaluation of relationships between irrigation non-uniformity and crop responses in lettuce
National Conference, Irrigation Australia
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Media Releases:
- SEQ irrigators now ‘website savvy’ on water use
- $10K grant to improve irrigation performance
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Researchers:
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Postgraduate Students:
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Partners:
Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management
The University of Southern Queensland
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Workshops:
- Annual Research Forum 2008 - Presentations
- Annual Research Forum 2008 - Poster Session
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Irrigation Toolkits:
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Training:
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