Orchard irrigation system assessments and demonstration of irrigation...
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Orchard irrigation system assessments and demonstration of irrigation scheduling best practice More Dollars per Drop – Royalty for Regions Project-Water Use Efficiency Supporting your success James Dee, Project Manager
Transcript of Orchard irrigation system assessments and demonstration of irrigation...
Orchard irrigation system assessments and demonstration of irrigation scheduling best practice More Dollars per Drop – Royalty for Regions Project-Water Use Efficiency
Supporting your success
James Dee, Project Manager
More Dollars per Drop
•Water use and production focus •Water use Efficiency = T/ML saleable product
•Active industry partnership •Fruit, Vegetables, Dairy and Viticulture
•$3.8 Million State funding over 4 years
•4 major components • Industry support, On farm assessment, BMP demonstration , Web
based irrigation management tools development
More Dollars per Drop - Assessment team
Supporting your success
More Dollars per Drop
• Fruit Industry focus
• Industry Support and Development (2012-2016) • Funding industry development officer (David Williams)
• Irrigation Assessment across industries (2012- 2014) • 75 assessments by June 2014, • 31 Expressions of Interest and 21 assessments completed so far
• Irrigation Scheduling Tools Development and Extension (2012 – 2015) • design and grower needs analysis underway
• Best Management Irrigation Practice Demonstration linked in with APAL Climate Change Project – Netted orchard in Manjimup WA
More Dollars per Drop
• On Farm Assessment Process • Structured Interview – approx 1.5 hours per grower interview • Evaluate irrigation management knowledge and skills • Record production data –down to block level if possible • Record water used for irrigation – down to block level if possible
• Rapid irrigation system evaluation – 3 blocks per farm • Record pump, mainline and block description (emitter type and spacings) • Test pressure and flow variation within each block (6 reading per block) • Record mainline flow and pressure at pump to evaluate pump operation
• Individual grower reports developed • Review of irrigation management • Water use efficiency figures per crop for the farm • Irrigation system evaluation and problem identification • Areas for improvement and recommendations on how this can be achieved
More Dollars per Drop
•What we have found so far
• Irrigation system design, maintenance and management is important to growers but not a high priority
• Production system key factor to WUE :Low level of adoption of high density planting is limiting water use efficiency.
• The level of understanding of the principles of irrigation scheduling is not as high as we would have expected. • Linking root zone soil water storage with the plant’s ability to extract water and
the environmental interactions driving crop water use is not well understood
More Dollars per Drop
• Demonstration of Best Management Practice for Irrigation Management with and without netting
• Demonstration site also linked to APAL Project – • AP12029 “Understanding apple & pears production systems in a changing
climate”
• Netting established over high density Cripps pink apple orchard
• Irrigation system is microsprinklers overlapping down the row, soil moisture monitoring using capacitance probes and Watermark sensors
• Irrigation scheduling will be based on Evapotranspiration (ET0) using the ASCE Tall Crop/Alfalfa equation and appropriate crop coefficients
• We will validate the use of Effective Area of Shade in WA over the 3 year period
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Weather station
Fruit temp sensors
Leaf temp sensors
Capacitance probe and gypsum blocks Water meter Solenoid valve
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Leased area
Thank you
For more information, contact James Dee, project manager on Ph: (08) 9780 6285
Supporting your success
