Substantial upgrades include a 50-bay rotary dairy as well as an increase in available irrigation water from 24 to 115 megalitres
An automated irrigation system installed at the Tasmanian Dairy Research Facility (TDRF) at Elliott in Tasmania’s northwest 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 is part of a $7.8 million joint investment by the Tasmanian Government and the University of Tasmania to support the success of the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture’s (TIA) research farms.
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 to irrigate 32 hectares of previously unirrigated land for TIA farmlet trials.
Four TIA farmlets, or ‘mini farms’ 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 a system was designed that was simultaneously capable of extensive water reach over the area, as well as an elegantly simple automation system to ensure fingertip control by PC or smartphone.
Based on its extensive experience in ensuring sustainability and productivity in major irrigation areas –a Goldtec DREAM 2 system was installed, which is a next-generation central control system. It allows the combining of 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. 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.”
The system installed that is now successfully in service includes:
- 11km of PVC and polypipe that was needed to be installed to a tight schedule, using the latest technology, including Water Dynamic’s latest trenchers based in Tasmania and its Ritmo plastic welding plant to help ensure a larger and more secure infrastructure
- A new pump shed and high-efficiency pump from the global Caprari Group, active in 96 countries, including a branch in Australia. Caprari is part of WATERALIA, a partnership between Caprari and AMBIENTA, one of Europe’s largest asset managers entirely focused on environmental sustainability – a factor vital to the TIA project.
- 187 Toro Perrot PS2 piston-drive sprinklers with a maximum throw of more than 50m and high rotation speeds that can be adjusted as required, between 50 – 120 seconds for a 180° arc which can be adjusted for part circle (30-330°) and full circle (360°) operation. The fully enclosed piston drive system presents a smooth, vibration-free continuous rotation with high reliability and reduced watering time.
- 43 Netafim control valves operated by the Goldtec control system, through remote terminal Units (RTU) solenoid valve configurations. Solenoid valve advantages include fast response time, lower power consumption, remote operation, extremely fast open and shut times, vertical and horizontal application, and safe external leakage block.
- Overall system control is capable of handling multiple irrigation lines with flexible and user-changeable network definitions. The system’s large pool of irrigation programs each contains the sequence of participating valves, water and fertiliser dosage, operation timing and conditions. Valves can be irrigated individually or in groups defined as library groups or single-use groups.
This was a complex installation with one of the challenges being 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.
The project needed to happen time-efficiently in order to secure millions of dollars worth of government funding, so time was of the essence.”
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.
Andrew Summerton said Water Dynamics was greatly assisted in bringing the project to fruition by a close partnership with TIA, plus an extensive experience in major sustainability projects nationally and in Tasmania (including the Macquarie Settlement partnership, which also is fully operational this year).
He said the TIA project will 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.
“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,” Andrew Summerton concluded.
