An automated irrigation system from Water Dynamics is helping the Tasmania dairy industry in its goal to lead the nation in research and innovation.
The farmlet or mini farm system involved in the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture's (TIA's) Tasmanian Dairy Research Facility (TDRF) at Elliott in Tasmania's north west is among the ongoing projects supported by the Tasmanian Government as part of its target to grow the state's annual farm gate value of agriculture to $10 billion per year by 2050.
"The major scale of the upgrades taking place at TDRF are part of a $7.8 million joint investment by the Tasmanian Government and the University of Tasmania to support the success of TIA research farms," Water Dynamics' national operations manager Andrew Summerton said.
The TDRF upgrade includes a 50-bay rotary dairy, a new 12.5 megalitre effluent dam and a boost to irrigation water storage capacity in one of the dams, from 24 to 115 megalitres.
The increased water storage capacity is distributed by 11 kilometres of underground pipeline installed by Water Dynamics to irrigate 32 hectares of previously unirrigated land for farmlet trials.
Four farmlets are being established, each with eight 1ha paddocks to enable the TIA team to test research hypotheses under real farm conditions and ensure the results provide practical solutions for farmers.
Fine control of the irrigation system is essential to the function of the farmlets, so Water Dynamics had to combine a system that was simultaneously capable of extensive water reach over the area, as well as a simple automation system to ensure fingertip control by PC or smartphone.
Based on its extensive experience of ensuring sustainability and productivity in major irrigation areas - including those of Tasmania, Mt Gambier, Mildura, Yarrawonga and the Northern Territory - Water Dynamics employed a Goldtec DREAM 2 system, which is a next-generation central control system. It allows combining various technologies to suit each project's specific need.
"It is an Internet-enabled controller system, so the user can control everything from a PC or Smartphone, which is essential on a widely varying and extensive project such as this," Mr Summerton said.
"The automation system can handle multiple irrigation heads installed on the TIA project, enabling the user to manage medium-to-very-large projects with many irrigation lines using a single controller. Such a flexible system - employing user-changeable network definitions - is important to an irrigation system as sophisticated and extensive as the TIA project."
Mr Summerton said it was a complex job.
"One of the challenges was the sheer size of the area and being able to co-ordinate work within it to efficiently complete the job in a short timeframe needed by the customer," he said.
"The project needed to happen time-efficiently in order to secure millions of dollars' worth of government funding, so time was of the essence."
In order to complete the job within a short timeframe of four months Water Dynamics' service technicians from its Yarrawonga, Vic, branch were flown in to assist in moving the project along.
The TIA's $6.5 million Dairy HIGH 2 (high integrity grass-fed herds) project will focus on pasture-based dairy systems and seeks to address industry challenges and opportunities to achieve highly productive and profitable dairy operations that are sustainable into the future. It is a five-year partnership of strategic importance to Australia's dairy industry.
"The research at Elliott has become more relevant over the past 12 months, with high input costs and the need to better understand major nutrients like nitrogen," Dairy Australia managing director Dr David Nation said.
Mr Summerton said the TIA project woulf help transform knowledge of agriculture, food production and post-farmgate practices, to the sustainable economic benefit of Tasmania and farmers further afield.
"Sustainable use of water plays an absolutely critical part in ensuring the viability of farming not only in Tasmania, but also throughout Australia and globally," he said.
"Whether we will all have to address water scarcity is no longer a question: it is a given. This applies whether the projects in which we are involved are individual farms or agribusinesses, or farsighted industry projects such as this TIA initiative."
