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Irrigation feature… also see how efficiently Australian cotton irrigators are managing water when their farms are in full production. Janelle Montgomery, Irrigation Officer, said NSW DPI will be working with irrigators from Central Queensland to southern NSW to establish benchmarks for the 2012–13 season, which will help to improve individual performance and provide the industry with valuable benchmarks. “We use the on-line benchmarking program Watertrack Rapid developed by Aquatech Consulting, Narrabri. This program not only calculates a range of standardised performance indicators, but evaluates crop water use and estimates on farm water losses” she says. Watertrack Rapid requires a variety of inputs of which are easily extracted from farm records. This data includes yield, crop area, sowing date, irrigation dates and soil type along with daily rainfall, storage volumes at start and end of season, irrigation water pumped and harvested, and soil moisture reserves. Energy use efficiency benchmarks Energy use benchmarking is in its infancy. In collaboration with the National Centre for Engineering in Agriculture (NCEA) of the University of Southern Queensland, NSW DPI is conducting on-farm energy assessments which identify where, and how efficiently, energy is used and explore ways to reduce energy use and costs. Murray Valley Lasers have been involved with Laser Machine Control for over 25 years They are at the cutting edge of supplying products to earthmoving and building contractors, irrigation and broadacre farmers, civil contractors and surveyors Please call us on 03 5032 9555 for all you enquiries Visit www.murrayvalleylasers.com.au/OBryanHD.htm to watch the video of the HD Scraper in action Hamish Johnstone, ‘ Macintyre Downs ’ is trialling EnergyCalc Lite to assess energy use across his farm. NCEA has developed assessment tools – EnergyCalc (webbased) and EnergyCalc Lite (ipad app) which assess direct on-farm energy use, costs and GHG emissions, diesel, petrol, LPG and electricity consumption. They examine energy use right across the farm providing energy use benchmarks for the various farming practices such as tillage, spraying and irrigation. The availability of input data for these programs varies across farms. If actual measurements of energy use have not been taken, each tool has calculators that can provide estimates. But NSW DPI and NCEA are encouraging irrigators and consultants to keep more extensive records and conduct measurements that enable robust assessments of on-farm energy use. This season, NSW DPI and NCEA are working with Hamish Johnstone, ‘Macintyre Downs’, Goondiwindi to measure energy use associated with irrigation. Water pumping is a significant energy user, so it’s vital pumps are working efficiently. NCEA is developed a pump performance monitor that is currently being trialled at Macintyre Downs. Phil Szabo, NCEA said the monitor measures diesel consumption, suction and discharge pressures and water flow during pumping events. This data is then transferred via telemetry to NCEA where they analyse it to determine pump performance. In addition, the monitor provides more accurate information on energy use required for Energy Calc and EnergyCalc Lite. Hamish is also trialling the ipad app EnergyCalc Lite. While the pump monitor will provide irrigation information, he will also be recording diesel consumption for each farming operation. This will involve bowser readings before and after an operation such as planting on inter-row cultivation. Hamish plans to take measurements from one field and extrapolate the results over his entire cotton area to benchmark energy use across the whole farm. We are looking for more cotton irrigators to get involved in energy benchmarking with the long term aim to produce industry energy benchmarks, as we have done for water use efficiency. Then irrigators can use these benchmarks to compare their performance and strive for continuous improvement. This work is part of NSW DPI’s Cotton Research Development Corporation (CRDC) funded project Promoting Water Smart Infrastructure Investment. For further information please contact Janelle Montgomery, NSW DPI Moree 0428 640990 or Stuart Bray NSW DPI Gunnedah 02 6741 8367. 28 — The Australian Cottongrower December 2012–January 2013
Cotton irrigators continue to improve Irrigation feature… FIGuRE 1: Improvements to furrow irrigation A2011 survey by GHD Hassall with the Cotton CRC D&D team, showed that over the past five years, 96 per cent of irrigators surveyed had made some form of improvement to their furrow irrigation systems or had changed to an alternate irrigation type. Figure 1 shows that maintenance of field slope was the most widely used improvement. Almost half of the surveyed irrigators had made changes to the flow or size of their siphons and 20 per cent had metered their siphons. A small percentage (five per cent) of irrigator respondents had installed alternate irrigation systems. ‘Other’ methods identified for improving furrow irrigation included: ■ Increased head/flow; ■ Monitoring storage/water table; ■ Timing; ■ Use of probes; ■ Channel maintenance/changes; ■ Changes to water outlet (siphon/sprinkler); and, ■ Pipes through bank (PTB). Specialising in: • Centre Pivot Irrigation • Lateral Move Irrigation Including: • Pumping Equipment • Telemetry • Water Meters • Fertigation/Injection • Channel Gates • Pipelines • Full System Integration Toowoomba: Goondiwindi: Ross Ecroyd Mob: 0488 089 565 Unit 12, 1-5 Gardner Court, Toowoomba, QLD 4350 Email: ross@pivotirrigation.com.au Richard Gower Mob: 0408 089 619 47 Russell Street, Goondiwindi, QLD 4390 Email: richard@pivotirrigation.com.au Gunnedah: www.pivotirrigation.com.au Mark Schmitt Mob: 0408 089 036 44 Conadilly Street, Gunnedah, NSW 2380 Email: mark@pivotirrigation.com.au December 2012–January 2013 The Australian Cottongrower — 29
Page 1 and 2: Print Post Approved Publication No.
Page 3 and 4: In this issue... Refuge crops - inv
Page 5 and 6: We’re with you from the beginnin
Page 7 and 8: The trouble with buying old technol
Page 9 and 10: The BIG HIT in insect control Regis
Page 11 and 12: NOW REGISTERED FOR SILVERLEAF WHITE
Page 13 and 14: STEIGER AND QUADTRAC: THE ULTIMATE
Page 15 and 16: Foliar Fertilizers ... better fibre
Page 17 and 18: Vip3A resistance genes: A threat to
Page 19 and 20: are 34 to 51 times the maximal leve
Page 22 and 23: confidence in the ranking of new br
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Page 30 and 31: CSIRO Researcher Profile: Greg Cons
Page 32 and 33: World CoMModity Watch US The US cro
Page 34 and 35: marketing The world cotton market
Page 36 and 37: marketing will intervene in the mar
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Page 40 and 41: FIGuRE 3: Polyester thermoset compo
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Page 52 and 53: CLASSIC TRACTOR TALES Adolphe Kégr
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Page 62 and 63: District Reports… The dryland cot
Page 64: District Reports… warmth that was

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