Smarter Irrigation for Profit

The Smarter Irrigation for Profit - Phase 2 (SIP2) project is a partnership between the dairy, cotton, horticulture, rice and grain sectors, supported by funding from the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment as part of its Rural R&D for Profit program and each of the industries involved.

The first phase of the project (SIP1) was conducted between 2015 and 2018. The outcomes were significant for the dairy industry in identifying irrigation management practices that were constraining optimal yield of pastures and crops on irrigated areas.

SIP1 measured the outcomes of amended irrigation strategies and technologies on five 'Optimisation Irrigation Dairy Farms' in Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia, Queensland and Western Australia. All SIP1 sites increased energy and water use efficiency,  dry matter grown per hectare per day and the overall yield within a specified irrigation period.

These results were achieved by improving irrigation practices such as timing of start-up, using technologies to inform irrigation scheduling and conducting system and pump checks. SIP1 showed that improved water productivity hinged on “getting the basics right.”

SIP2 has been developed using the findings from SIP1.  There are four dairy projects within SIP2 (2019 – 2022) with the collective aim to get the irrigation fundamentals right on farm, increase adoption of existing technologies and explore the potential of new strategies and technologies not yet adopted in dairy. These are:

• What's my yield gap?  Maximising water productivity - Dairy Australia
• Beyond Water Smart – Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture 
• Scaling irrigation management to support whole farm operations – Agriculture Victoria 
• Precise real time automated irrigation for cotton and dairy – University of Southern Queensland and Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture 

SIP2: The next phase for dairy

SIP2: What's my yield gap? Maximising water productivity

This project aims to fast-track adoption of SIP1 key findings through trials, measurement and benchmarking on 10 Dairy Optimisation Sites through the seven dairy regions on the mainland.  Measures including yield and water/power efficiency will be determined  by collecting data using standard water productivity and economic metrics across all sites.

All Australian dairy regions have businesses that use irrigation, but the types of application and agronomic systems are diverse. For this reason, new technologies and strategies are being trialled and evaluated in a local context, with input from farmers and service providers of the Dairy Optimisation Site reference group.

Measuring outcomes for dairy

To measure the dairy specific outcomes of the What’s my yield gap? Maximising Water productivity project, standard metrics and measurement equipment has been applied at each site. This will maximise industry-wide impact and  assessment of the efficiency and production outcomes of adopting certain irrigation practices and innovations.

These include:

• Soil moisture monitors installed: capacitance probes, real-time telemetry and app-accessible reporting to monitor the effectiveness of irrigation and rainfall on soil moisture
• Irrigation system and pump evaluations:  baseline versus improved system efficiencies, Yield monitoring on farm including using growth rate and yield measures to compare against satellite measurement systems including Pasture.io.
• Irrigation scheduling using IrriPasture, an online weather-based water balance calculator. IrriPasture has been further developed to include crops such as maize, sorghum and millet as well as lucern, shallow rooted perennial and annual pastures.

Below is the standard reporting table being used.

Dairy Australia is ensuring farmers have access to the latest information to achieve pasture and crop yield potential from irrigation water while improving input efficiency of water, power and labour to increase farm profit. 

Catch Can Testing

Profitable Irrigation Pumping

System Maintenance

System Maintenance Check-lists

Scroll to “Management and System Check-lists” 

Improved flow on irrigation bays- benefit of spinner cuts

Irrigation scheduling

Advanced data-driven irrigation: Where are the losses?

What is evapotranspiration and how do I use it to schedule irrigations?

Soil moisture monitoring

Dairy Australia Soil Moisture Monitoring Information Sheet

Irrigation New Zealand Soil Moisture Monitoring Guide

Useful websites

• Agriculture Victoria
• Irrigation New Zealand Practical Resources
• Hunter Local Land Services

Local Dairy Optimisation Sites

Western Australia – Dardanup

Contact: Sam Taylor on sam@agvivo.com.au

South Australia – Mt Compass

Contact: Cathy Ashby on cathy.ashby@dairyaustralia.com.au

South Australia – Mt Gambier

Contact: Cathy Ashby on cathy.ashby@dairyaustralia.com.au

Western Victoria – Mepunga East

Contact: Graeme Ward on graeme.ward57@bigpond.com

Murray Dairy – Tongala

Contact: Shane Byrne on shane.byrne@dairyaustralia.com.au

Gippsland - MID - Cobains

Contact: Robyn McLean on robyn.mclean@gippsdairy.com.au or Billy Marshall on billy.marshall@agriculture.vic.gov.au

Gippsland – Yarram

Contact: Robyn McLean on robyn.mclean@gippsdairy.com.au or Billy Marshall on billy.marshall@agriculture.vic.gov.au

NSW – Bega

Contact: Kym Revington on revington.techservices@gmail.com

NSW – Tocal

Contact: Peter Smith on sapphireirrig@gmail.com

NSW – Coraki

Contact: Ross Warren on Ross.Warren@daf.qld.gov.au

Pre-season checklists

Fact sheets

Expert videos