Hunter smarter farming: Irrigating for profit

Local Land Services worked with landholders to research irrigation methods that improve productivity and sustainability.

Last updated: 19 May 2025

Staff member in field looking at the soil.
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Topics
Agriculture <br> Livestock <br> Natural resource management
Local Land Services Regions
Hunter

Project overview

Status: Completed

Local Land Services worked with two farms, Bowman Farm and Kwyong Flat in Gloucester to test irrigating for profit and reducing moisture loss.

6:27

Irrigation for Profit

After 4 very different years, dairy farmers Adam Forbes and Tom Middlebrook of Gloucester describe the benefits of the Hunter LLS, Smarter Irrigation for Profit Project which was carried out on their farms.

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Video transcript

Irrigation for Profit

foreign
at the beginning of the project we
mapped the paddocks using am38 mapping
work out where our soil variability was
and make sure we were putting the probes
in a representative location on our farm
we put two probes in one on the lower
soil which was quite light and another
Probe on the heavier soil that was
really good to learn the to look at the
solver their ability so we located the
probe in position of where a soil
structure which best represented a
majority of the paddock based on the E38
mapping the probe itself goes to a depth
of 80 centimeters with readings at 10
centimeter increments along with the
rain gauge positioned on top we chose to
put a base station in place and Link the
two probes up and this technology
allowed us to if we choose to implement
more probes into that system in a later
date so the data collected from the
produce is sent via Telemetry unit
directly to my phone it's an app on my
phone which I utilize every day to look
at the moisture within the soil as well
as the soil temp and then I can make
decision is based on those readings the
data is really easy to access on your
phone it's as simple as a click and
we've got the graph up like that the
graphs on the porosity platform have
been really useful in just trying to
work out where our refill point is our
stress our Field capacity and it's been
actually quite useful talking to
porosity and even changing these these
levels at times depending on how pasture
species and the rooting depth of those
plants one which which shows the
position of the moisture within the
total range of the soil and there's a
raw Zone there which is ready available
water and regardless of what crop I had
in I would always aim to be in that zone
so the second graph showed the moisture
levels at the different increments as we
went to depth and this was useful for
different cropping types based on their
root system and how far we would need
moisture down into the soil the probes
are bringing really useful in handling
different climatic conditions we've seen
so many extremes over the last few years
of the projects from a record drought
into the last two years being record wet
the probes have been really useful in
making sure we're starting on time
putting the correct amount on and trying
to maintain it in the real Optimum
management Zone in the drought where
we're really focusing on just making the
most use of our water which was a
limited resource and in the wet we were
just really focusing on
when we needed to start back up
irrigating and also in our Peak growing
Seasons we were finding that the plant
water demand was often higher than we
realized so that was really important to
our maximize our growth window in those
high growth periods so throughout the
program there's been some pretty big
on-farm changes to bring forward our
scheduling to be on the front foot
looking at etos and the effects of those
and understanding exactly what frequency
and volumes I need to get a response at
the regarded depths for both pasture and
and summer cropping which has increased
our water use efficiency I've also been
able to transfer that knowledge to other
areas across the farm and we've seen
great benefits with both our pasture
utilization and growth as well as our
summer cropping programs the probes are
very useful in our decision making
process on Farm whether that was
starting irrigation earlier than usual
and pre-empting when we were going to
enter into a soil moisture deficit
making sure our irrigation equipment was
ready to go as we were seeing soil
moisture decline other useful decisions
using the probes included ensuring we
had enough soil moisture to apply
nitrogen and also using soil temperature
for our sowings prior to the project
we're often either underwatering or over
watering and through the use of the pros
we've been able to improve our
irrigation efficient efficiency making
sure we're applying the right amount of
water at the right time it's
particularly being in that spring growth
period and when that plant is really in
that the zoom phase I suppose through
that early spring flush and the amount
of water that that plant can uptake and
grow so exponential really I think we've
really picked up an extra window of
pasture growth there and it's also been
particularly useful in improving how we
manage through Summers and ensuring that
probably doing more frequent lower
amounts of irrigation to just really
maintain the health of plants through
those hot summer periods we had a system
evaluation done overall we were very
happy with the way the system had been
designed but there was a few little
tweaks and just reinforced the
importance of even ongoing maintenance
it's cleaning sprinklers checking tire
pressures and ensuring your pumps
running efficiently a major thing was
revolving around our pump and its
efficiency and performance and it just
highlighted the effect that that can
have on your water use efficiency and as
well as how much power you draw while
you're irrigating we've found the
investment in soil moisture metering
probes very very cost effective and
particularly under a center pivot
irrigation system where you can make
decisions quickly based on the data in
front of you and being able to irrigate
large areas quickly I have also used the
data to make decisions on other areas of
your farm where we don't have centiped
irrigation the ability to be able to
transfer this data not from just this
area but onto other soil types and have
an understanding of what's going on and
then increase the water use efficiency
has been immense and I'd quite
confidently say that this sort of
technology is pay for itself within a
season as with any AG tech support is
really important to make making the most
of the technology Brian Thompson of
porosity has been a critical part of
this and having having someone on the
end of the phone when we do have a
hiccup or just getting a hand to
interpret the data has been really
critical and has made sure that we've
got the most out of this technology it
definitely pays to have someone who
knows what's going on just a phone call
away I've really enjoyed being able to
show the benefits of this technology to
other Farmers or the efficiency gains
the productivity profitability gains and
also show to The Wider community that we
want to be responsible and
environmentally sustainable with our
water use it's developed a lot of
confidence within me and my decision
making around irrigation and I'm sure
that it's that's gone on to other people
in the district and their irrigation
practices and they've been able to build
confidence

Project objectives

The Hunter Smarter Farming: Irrigating for Profit project aimed to improve the capabilities of the Hunter region’s dairy irrigators to:

  • increase profits by optimising dry matter (DM) production and utilisation throughout the irrigation season
  • concentrating on efforts to start irrigation at the right time and rate to avoid ongoing seasonal soil moisture loss.

Project background

Usual practice on many irrigating dairy farms in the Hunter region is to use visual inspection or historic management to make scheduling decisions.  There is also a tendency to delay irrigation to postpone costs associated with:

  • water
  • energy  
  • labour use  
  • avoiding maintenance outlay.

This results in systems not being prepared to operate when needed or operate inefficiently.

By not monitoring soil moisture early and throughout the season, irrigators become limited by the capacity of their systems.  

The water applied once start-up is delayed could possibly be ineffective if the system cannot apply irrigation at the required rate to increase, as appose to simply maintaining soil moisture, which is optimal for plant growth (called the Readily Available Water (RAW) range).

Project delivery

  • Continuously updating a resource kit of system maintenance and efficiency check-lists for the main irrigation systems used in the region.  
  • Sign-posting dairy irrigators to other resources to improve system preparedness and increase water and energy use efficiency.
  • Preparing e-learning webinars, podcasts and short videos, to increase knowledge and understanding of the factors which influence irrigation scheduling decisions, including key terminology and interpretation of water balance information.
  • Extending seasonally relevant information from irrigation sites established to demonstrate the use of two irrigation scheduling fundamentals:
    • soil moisture monitoring using sensors to indicate depth of effective water (via rainfall & irrigation), logged in real-time to a web-based platform accessible via an App
    • use of a freely available weather-based irrigation scheduling tool so that a general water balance can be determined and maintained. This is a trial App called the Scheduling Irrigation Dairy for Dairy, developed by the National Centre for Engineering in Agriculture, University of Southern Queensland & Dairy Australia
    • communicating project learnings and undertaking basic economic analysis.

Tom Middlebrook

Bowman Farm, Barrington NSW

  • Milking herd: 450
  • Dairy farm area: 450ha
  • Milking platform: 200ha
  • Irrigated area: 100  
  • Irrigation System: 2 centre pivots, 1 lateral
  • Smarter Farming: 15 ha centre pivot, 5 span (270m) 1900
3:53

Meet Bowman Farm

Moisture monitoring equipment: Single 80cmEnviroPro capacitance probe with 3 sensor depths, Adcon NextG telemetry logger. System has capacity to accommodate multiple probes but these must be located within 60m of the logger. Automatic tipping bucket rain gauge also installed.

Adam Forbes

Kywong Flat, Barrington, NSW

  • Milking herd: 700ha
  • Dairy farm area: 700ha
  • Milking platform: 180ha
  • Irrigated area: 210ha
  • Irrigation System: 2 centre pivots, bike-shift, soft-hose & hard-hose
  • Smarter Farming Site: 50ha centre pivot, 7 span (450m) 1900
3:31

Meet Kyong Flat

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Video transcript

Meet Kyong Flat

Barrington flat
we currently meal commit / 700k hours
producing just over 6 million litres of
milk a year for Norco we run off about
270 hectare milking platform with around
200 210 of that being under irrigation
we've got various types of irrigation
and center-pivot hard hose soft hose and
some bike shift we're currently at our
starting smart irrigation site where we
hope to use some technology to better
utilize this center pivot of
infrastructure and prove our water use
efficiency at the moment we feel that we
could definitely improve the way that we
different soil types as well as the
different crops under this center pivot
which has two very distinctly different
crops and different soil types as well
as really optimizing and maintaining the
infrastructure better to get more
efficiency in uniform when you write
throughout as part of this project the
things that we know we need to improve
on and would like to improve on would be
our irrigation scheduling and just using
the available technology to make better
management decisions in order to
optimize growth driving all grass and be
more efficient with our irrigation as
far as power and water usage
[Music]
as far as the available technology goes
we are very excited to be using soil
moisture probe technology and this will
really help our decisions as far as
particularly this pivot we've got some
challenges with the different soil types
as far as over watering and watering
based on the how heavy or how light soil
is as well as the different crop types
and just having the ability to look at
our phones and just see whether that
whether we should be starting to
irrigate or not as part of the hunter
starting smiling irrigation project we
hope to learn and adopt soil moisture
probe technology and really get an
understanding from the reports of what
is happening with our soil moisture
across our farm and across our
irrigation infrastructure we really hope
to learn and understand what technology
is out there and available through
weather forecasting tools especially
through the Dare irrigation scheduling
app and also hope to develop some
checklists and maintenance protocols so
myself and my team can really make sure
arrogation infrastructure is ready to go
and operating efficiently

Moisture monitoring equipment: Two 80cm EnviroPro capacitance probe with 3 sensor depths located in two separate paddocks with field telemetry loggers. The loggers feed into a LoRa Gateway base station located in a near-by office. This system allows for multiple probes to be located around the farm. Automatic tipping bucket rain gauge also installed.

Project outcomes

  • Local Land Services supported the Gloucester farms involved in the project as they are new to soil moisture monitoring.  
  • EM 38 mapping and soil characterisation surveys were conducted to inform the most appropriate location of soil moisture monitoring equipment.  
  • Both sites have been installed with 80 cm EnviroPro capacitance probes with sensors located at 15cm, 40cm and 80cm depths which sample a sphere of about 100mm, however 95% of the measurement is within 50mm.  
  • Capacitance probes measure volumetric soil moisture content (mm). Each property has chosen a different telemetry systems (logging of data) to meet their particular requirements.
  • Tocal dairy operated by NSW DPIRD also partnered with the Hunter Smarter Farming: Irrigating for Profit project to assist with improved irrigation scheduling decisions and monitoring of production and profit impacts.
4:12

Hunter Smarter Farming: Irrigating for Profit at Tocal Dairy

The Hunter Smarter Farming: Irrigation for Profit project is working closely with Tocal Dairy, Tocal Agricultural College, NSW. The college and farm operations are owned and operated by the NSW Department of Primary Industries.

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Video transcript

Hunter Smarter Farming: Irrigating for Profit at Tocal Dairy

hi i'm michael ice and i'm the centre

manager here at take our College which

is 2,200 hectares of farming country

which covers a beef Enterprise horses

sheep poultry and of course the dairy

where I'm standing at the moment we have

two hundred and twenty odd hectares here

plus some runoff country that we use for

heifers and dries on the rest of the

property about eighteen months ago - two

years ago we started a project to update

the irrigation here at Tokyo we had

about 40 hectares of bike shift

irrigation it was about 20 years old and

we now have three center pivots covering

that same area so over the last 12

months we've been able to have thirty

seven hectares come in underneath those

pivots and that's had a significant

impact on the entire productivity of the

dairy we now milk to 70 cows between two

seventy three hundred our target is to

produce between 2 million and 2.4

million litres of milk each year and to

do that we've got to grow homegrown feed

yes our current constraints here with

the new system would be I suppose it's

just been in for about 12 months now and

we've got a pretty good handle on using

it and operating it but now we want to

really get some good tools in there to

make some better decisions so we need

some better data on on our soil moisture

and also power usage and you know so we

can relate all that back to you know how

many tons of dry matter we're growing

per hectare and what the costs are

involved in in that process

yes so now as part of this project what

we really like to do is get some you

know solid data on the amount of dry

matter that we are growing under the

pivots so we'll start to use the

electronic pasture meter before each

grazing you get a lot of data on that

and that will help us then link that all

back to you know the amount of water

we've put in the amount of electricity

we've put in what those costs are and

then we can get a good handle on the

profitability of you know dry matter

growing per hectare on the farm here

yes so we're really looking forward to

you know making some better decisions

we're getting some soil moisture

monitors spreading out over the pivot

area and with the information from those

from that monitoring hopefully we can

you know make better decisions about

when to water how much to apply so yeah

perhaps at the moment we could be a

little bit late yeah before we send the

pivot around again so we perhaps just

losing that bit of production that we

could otherwise could have gained so

that's what we're looking forward to

with the soil moisture monitors to

really make sure that we've now we use

that information along with the weather

data here we're lucky enough to have a

weather site on the property

so we can get you know temperatures and

evaporations and all that sort of stuff

and add that to the to the soil moisture

monitoring formation and hopefully make

some good decisions

so what are we hoping to get out of the

project at our caldera we want to see

more accurate data around total water

used water use efficiency and of course

the cost of putting that water on a

paddock so that's mainly our power bills

we also want to know how much grass

we're drying and at the same time it's

really critical that we enhance the

technology that we've got on the farm

that we started use different

technologies so so moisture meters are

those sorts of things to ensure that

we've got the latest technology to give

us that information that we need

[Music]

you

[Music]

Project updates

November 2021 - January 2022

Bowman Farm 

The late spring/ summer period has seen 629mm of rainfall so far. After planting a 90-day maize crop on the 16th of November, Tom Middlebrook says management “couldn’t be easier”. 

Equipment at the site was damaged during planting, leaving Tom without soil moisture, rainfall or soil temperature data for the period. He says he was fortunate this happened in a season when it was very obvious irrigation was not needed, otherwise he believes he would have struggled to make good irrigation decisions. The maize crop will be harvested around the 24th of February.

5:26

November 21 January 22 Bowman Farm Irrigation update

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November 21 January 22 Bowman Farm Irrigation update

hi i'm tom and welcome back to bowman

farm since our last visit in early

november as you can see our maze has

been planted and well and truly

established as it's finishing

the last stages of its cycle

we got the maze in the ground on the

16th of november i went in with a nice

little moisture profile around eight mil

of rain um and then some

10 days or across the next two weeks

it saw 170 odd mil come down and and we

did experience a certain level of water

logging um

the the plants were probably you know

four inches or 100 mil out of the ground

so they weren't out of that danger zone

yet but

i i equated it to be around sub 1

of the total area that we had planted

got affected by why water logging so

you know that's i'm pretty i'm okay with

that

since then we continue to see more and

more rain it's been the most

incredible season we had another

200

260 something mill in in december and

and that's just continued things on

we've we've really had no issues with

the with the growth and development of

the plant um the only issues we've come

across have been via pesticide with full

arnie a full army worm

and a variety of heliothers which we

have had to come in and spray once at

day 30 and then once at day 50.

and from that point uh now you know

we've we're really sort of just just

right in the end of it and and things

are still shaping up pretty well

so you know we've got we've got a 90 day

variety which is in the ground and it's

double cobbing some of the plants are

four metres tall

and today's day 83

and we'll probably be looking to take it

off at day 100 or you know between 100

105

realistically so

um

the the water levels of just

moisture levels have just been

maintained nicely i haven't really had

to think about irrigating once i've been

watching the eta closely with

with the fact that it still is summer

and the sun has a big effect on on day

to day running another hurdle which we

did come across in the planting phase

was a miscommunication on my behalf saw

a set of deep rippers uh go

through the cord of our soil moisture

monitoring probe didn't actually damage

the probe itself but it did tear through

the cord so we've had no data transfer

on top of our

our rain gauge being out of action as

well so it has sat there and and and we

haven't been able to utilize it but yeah

i don't think we could have got a

luckiest season for that

we have had motions in place to come in

and fix it we've tried and we got rained

out because the the cable needs to be

resolded so we need dry weather and

every day there's a shower rain so

it's been it's been okay

and when the crop comes off um we'll be

getting in

fixing it up properly and we're also

going to be installing a new rain gauge

the rain gauge is going to be a bit

higher quality one than what than what

we started out with and

it's it's had a lot of good reviews and

and all reports on it are fantastic and

i think it's one of those scenarios

where you get what you pay for um so

looking forward to having that gauge in

place and and being able to monitor as

we move into the next season uh the

mazel will be coming off

you know around the around the sort of

24th uh through to the end of end of

february depending on the development of

the cob um and then also where the

permitting we can get on it uh

after that we'll be going back in with

our with our autumn pastures uh this

year we're going to do something a

little bit different to what we have

done and there is a few other people

doing it um sort of interstate really

and we're going to be throwing in a a

clover mix with our rye and cereal

pasture

the main driving factor of this

is two things the

ridiculous cost of nitrogen fertilizers

and being able to manage that better and

then also to promote higher quality feed

as we move into spring

so we have gone in with turnips and

things in the past

but we're going to we're going to head

to walk down the the path of a variety

of inoculated clovers um this year um

it'll also reduce

uh the cost of our of our rye grass as

well so we'll be going in with knight

rye and the mix will probably look

something like um you know

20 20 kilos of cereal

maybe 10 kilos of clover and around that

15 kilo of rye roughly with it with a

starter fertilizer so yet to be

completely setting concrete but that's

the path we'll be heading to to manage

our costs better as we move through the

season and to prolong a higher pasture

quality

Kywong Flat

“It’s really been quite challenging wet conditions, whether that has been managing grazing, making silage or just trying to get the cows to the paddock with the Barrington River coming through the farm,” provides Adam.

Whilst there were actually two periods when soil moisture dropped below RAW, irrigation was not applied as Adam’s forecast data gave him confidence that rainfall would imminently refill the profile in coming days. “You need to use all the data in front of you to make those decisions,” he says.

2:18

November 21 Jan 22 Kywong Flat Irrigation Update

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Video transcript

November 21 Jan 22 Kywong Flat Irrigation Update

[Music]
g'day welcome back to coin flat where
we've got the hunter ls soil moisturing
project
um
since we last spoke it's been uh really
quite wet we've had sort of over 400
mils in the last quarter
and been quite challenging conditions
whether that's from managing grazing
making silage or just even trying to get
the cows to the paddock with the
barrington river come running through
the farm
look we haven't irrigated at all in that
period um in times when the soil
moisture pros were showing a deficit or
leading to a deficit there was always
good rain forecast so it was just making
sure you i guess you're using all the
data in front of you to make make those
decisions
yeah look down on f6 we've still got the
prairie loosen and chicory going along
really well because it's been quite a
mild summer the prairie's actually
stayed quite vegetative the whole way
through um
and look the the first the prairie is
actually starting to germinate again
under underneath uh we'll be topping up
the chicory and clover down there uh up
in f3
we've had a couple of silage cuts and
just trying to really keep up with the
slasher to maintain pasture quality i
haven't put a lot of nitrogen on up here
but we're following the cows which took
manure now um
and look we'll be aiming to sell these
paddocks in in mid-march um since we
last spoke we've had a couple of
technology issues and you can see we're
just putting a new rain gauge
um
probably a reminder that these systems
aren't set and forget uh you really got
to monitor them and make sure that what
you're seeing is i guess ground truth um
and look we've actually put a better
rain gauge in this time i'm just
going on the advice from brian ferocity
just um
yeah there's just a reliability and you
get what you pay for i suppose
[Music]

Summary

Both Tom Middlebrook and Adam Forbes have experienced very wet conditions with over 620mm of rainfall recorded during the period. The report demonstrates the decisions that were made, especially at Kywong Flat, not to irrigate when soil moisture levels dropped below Readily Available Water (RAW), relying upon forecasted rainfall to eventuate. Delaying irrigation avoided waterlogging conditions at Kywong Flat, especially on paddock F3. The Bowman Farm maize crop is considered a “bumper” result by Tom.

During the period both farms had difficulties with their 3-year-old soil moisture monitoring equipment, a reminder that:

  1. the technology needs to be actively maintained
  2. when it comes to making purchase decisions, most often you get what you pay for.

“It’s a reminder that these systems are not set and forget,” says Adam. “You really need to be monitoring them and make sure that what you are seeing is ground-truthed.” 

August - November 2021

Bowman Farm 

The winter period was a true irrigation season for Tom Middlebrook. Low rainfall in August and early September saw applications of irrigation slow soil moisture decline but not stop the decline. 

Tom was forced to make decisions on allocating water across the milking platform, potentially effecting optimal growth of the Italian rye/ barley/ brassica mixed pasture. Rainfall events in September and October increased soil moisture to finish the pasture well. The site has been prepared for the imminent sowing of the summer maize crop.

3:25

Bowman farm seasonal update August-November 2021

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Video transcript

Bowman farm seasonal update August-November 2021

hi i'm tom and welcome back to bowman
farm since our last visit uh back in
july
things were looking pretty dry and we
jumped everything into gear to get the
irrigation happening to try and do a bit
of a recovery on probably what i let
slip a little bit too far and moisture
stress was a bit too high so
um from that point yeah we we irrigated
flat out across the platform we got
virtually everything online and and just
really probably found a little bit of a
battle to
to allocate water everywhere and and
keep up to whatever everything was uh
requiring
um so for august we only had about eight
mil of rain and that that continued to
put the pressure on with some windy days
and and some high etos um
we
probably were doing about an inch to a
25 mil per week on this area here behind
us um which didn't it it stored the it
stored the decline of moisture but it
probably you know probably just was
never quite enough feed volume was still
good and we didn't have to increase the
allocation size or reduce
reduce the rotation length on this area
itself because of the moisture stress so
that was good
then as we came into september we did
see some rain and we got a break we got
a nice bit of rain in september which
followed into october and we had 96 mil
for october which set us up for you know
a really good position you can see on
the graph
a really big boost in moisture levels
and obviously irrigation didn't have to
continue
and then over the last couple of weeks
recently we've started to wrap this
paddock up
we've sprayed it out last week after its
12th grazing for the season um and
that's the same performance as last year
so i'm pretty happy with that um we then
followed in with the dry cows we did a
pre-spraying in front in front of the
cows on their last grazing and then put
the dry cows in here until today
and weather permitting will start we'll
start prep for maze maze is going to go
in here hopefully the end of the week
but we're in for some some good weather
now for the next two weeks so we'll just
take it as it comes
and
yeah see what happens
so with our with our maze planning this
year we've we've got some
some ground work to do
we're going to be putting on chicken
litter at 15 meters
cubic meters to the hectare as well as
we'll be doing a lime application on
this area this year at 2.5 tonne to the
hectare
um the maze will then just go a pre a
pre-blend custom blend will go in before
the maze and all of those
those things will be incorporated the
custom blend will go on about 700 kilos
to the hectare
we're planning a short season maze
and
it'll go in at 85 000 seeds to the
hectare
just with some dap as it goes in
and yeah i think we should set things up
for a nice crop

Summary

Both Tom Middlebrook and Adam Forbes have managed irrigation through a very dry winter season, with rainfall not eventuating until the second week in September.

The report demonstrates the site-specific decisions that have to be made in this situation dependent upon the pasture mix, soil type and water availability.

With a wetter summer predicted, the report also outlines the plans for the coming months, including improved use of soil moisture graphs to closely monitor conditions at varying soil depths. Both Tom and Adam need to monitor, and adjust irrigation frequency and rates accordingly, to manage developing roots as well as pasture mixes with both shallow and deep-rooted species.

May - July 2021

Bowman Farm

Bouncing-back from the impact of the extreme rainfall event of March, Tom Middlebrook has managed to improve production results of the slow starting Italian rye/ barley/ brassica mixed pasture. May to mid-June delivered ideal moisture levels, with small amounts of rainfall over the duration providing adequate moisture without saturation. 

The critical period for the farm has come in July with very limited rainfall and very little predicted. Tom has started irrigating and using nitrogen strategically to drive growth. Initial application saw little effect- so how does he plan to respond?

2:42

Bowman Farm Irrigation update May July 2021

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Video transcript

Bowman Farm Irrigation update May July 2021

hi i'm tom and welcome back to bowman
farm
since our last visit in early may we've
seen things take a fairly positive turn
for us
as you would remember from our last
video this area of our soil moisture
monitoring site was under severe
compaction from post flood uh scenario
uh what that meant was that we had some
very slow growth and and some probably
fairly patchy population of plants as
well
um
not too late after that we sort of had
some pretty good rain and and may end up
being uh fairly moist for us uh and that
sort of pushed through into june that
enabled us to get onto first grazing
here on the 20th of may
it was a little bit late but we followed
that up with
some timely fertilizer and some project
acid to try and stimulate that growth
and as you can see it's it's maintained
that pretty well right the way through
then up until this point so we ended up
with another 30 mil in june so moisture
levels are pretty good pretty consistent
and without fertilizer we're able to
maintain a fairly high volume of feed
the area is on a 28-day rotation and has
been going pretty well as you can tell
at the moment it's pretty windy here and
that has seen things fall into a
rapidly drying scenario um we
i looked at the moisture probe probably
complacently a little bit too late uh
seven days ago and thought okay well
we're going to have to make a move here
it was still in the raw zone but it was
it was sort of about halfway through
that zone so i i sort of jumped in and
and with as as well as irrigating some
of the other areas we got all our
irrigation online and have done a pass
on this area we only put on
half an inch or 12 mil
to try and see what the what the
response was from the soil and as you
can see on the graph there was very
little movement so that signifies that
we're going to be
into a pretty severe state of uh drying
and we're probably going to be
irrigating for a little while yet with
no rain on the forecast
yeah but you know we're all ready we're
up and running we've got good flow we've
got good volume of water behind us and
yeah hopefully we can ride it out

Kywong Flat

With “ideal” conditions prevailing throughout May to mid-June, Adam Forbes is the first to admit that he had become a little complacent about monitoring his soil moisture and therefore his telemetry base station lay idle after power was lost to the shed during the rainfall event of March.

With conditions obviously changing, strong winds, dry days and increased ETo, Adam decided he needed to know what was happening beneath the ground. 

It was just in time when his telemetry commenced to collect data from the soil moisture probes again on the 23rd of June- things were drying and moisture across both sites was trending downwards! Initial irrigation impacts were short-lived, and the farm has truly entered a mid-winter irrigation season.

3:09

Kywong Flat Irrigation Update May July 2021

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Video transcript

Kywong Flat Irrigation Update May July 2021

g'day everyone welcome back to koi long
flat where we've got the soil moisture
metering pros with the support of hunter
lls
um look since we last spoke we had
we still had some issues with the power
at the uh base station site but we have
since had those rectified um we weren't
overly concerned at the time because um
we were more on the wetter side than the
drier side through both june and early
july we had yeah quite a lot of yeah
just small incremental rainfall each day
that really kept um the the soil
moisture levels at an ideal or even a
slightly more than ideal moisture level
um since the middle of july uh
as you can see today the wind's picked
up a little bit and we've started having
a little bit more uh an increase in
evapotranspiration um
and yeah and that's continuing into
august look um i think on sunday we saw
an etl about four four and a half that
was certainly an anomaly we're sort of
still seeing usual days of two and a
half to three mil though so it's um and
certainly something to keep at the front
of our mind keeping an eye on that
moving forward especially as we get our
grasses increasing in their production
levels
so look going forward just i'm going to
look at making sure we're keeping a good
eye on those soil moisture probes making
sure we're proactive with our irrigation
in f3 look the italian rye grass is
going along really well
and coming up to our fourth grazing on
that um
yeah we'll just continue to follow that
through the spring i'm trying to
maintain our pasture quality in that
might take a solid cut if the
the season allows that um down on f6 the
prairie grass has really started to get
going it was a little bit slow to first
graze but um
yeah sort of second and third grades
have really really taken off and we're
getting some really nice quality feed
off that mixed pasture and the cows are
really chasing that and getting really
good milk production levels off it um so
yeah we started irrigating again on on
on the weekend um we had a little bit of
a pump issue halfway through the run but
it wasn't overly concerning because we
made sure that we were irrigating early
rather than waiting to get down to that
50
refill point um so by doing that early
we're able to rectify the pump issue and
get the irrigator going again before we
saw any form of stress or lost
production
the other thing we've been using the
pros for is just um just using it as a
reference point for the rest of the farm
just as far as how much irrigation we
might need based on similar soil types
um and just making sure that we're
getting onto other irrigation as we are
under these sites
[Music]
[Music]
February - April 2021

Bowman Farm

The effects of extreme rainfall events have resulted in disappointing establishment of the rye/ barley/ brassica mixed pasture that was aerial broadcast, after 450mm across 6-days, in March.

Soil moisture monitoring demonstrates that after extreme saturation the top 40cm of the soil profile, where the young roots are developing, has actually dried swiftly and is heavily compacted. Whilst the soil moisture graph shows that irrigation is not needed, the stacked graph is highlighting the need to irrigate carefully to provide moisture to where it is needed at this time.

With flooding causing damage to the pivot’s motor, Tom is relying upon the 30mm forecast by his SWAN Systems notification to provide this moisture. Slow growth means that the paddock is still at least 14 days away from first grazing and Tom has attempted to boost development with additional nitrogen that would have been lost from the system through run-off and leaching.

3:19

Bowman farm irrigation update 2021 Feb April

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Bowman farm irrigation update 2021 Feb April

hi
i'm tom and welcome back to bowman fans
it's been a whirlwind of
weather events uh which has led us to
where we are now
um to recap uh in february we sort of
we grazed our our forage sorghum one
more time to get five genuine grazings
off it uh then
we let it grow back a little bit and
then the cows came in and and we we
nipped it off before spraying it out
and and we sort of moved about 200 head
of heifers
in here to to chew it right down so it
was ready to drill
so we moved in and commenced drilling
by i think it was the sort of 16th of
march
we got washed out halfway through doing
that
um and that's when the when the real
rain started to come down and we were
sort of flooded in for
um sort of six seven day period um and
yeah just immense amounts of water
just as everyone else had following that
so
coming forward now to probably the 24th
of of march the waters started to
subside we'd had about 460 mil of rain
for that for that month already um
so that led us to sort of jump into
action pretty quick and we made a bit of
a snap decision and i pushed for a snap
decision to get the helicopter in and
broadcast this area here
um where i saw moisture monitoring site
is
and um so we did we moved in on the 26
um got it broadcast um and then
obviously the rain stopped so
we sort of came in and i i tried to
cover the seed over
but the ground was just under severe and
still is under severe compaction
which has sort of sort of led us now to
what's been a very slow start for
our crop what we went in with was an
italian rye
barley straight out of the silo and
brassica turnip
it's been it's approaching 40 days since
planting and still just moving very
slowly
realistically in hindsight now
we probably could have gone in sort of
48 hours later and drilled the whole
area
again because it did dry out that
quickly and
in combination with that this area
probably should have been irrigated
almost almost directly straight after
planting just to try and help water that
crop in because it was so dry and you
can see on the graph
that the top that sort of top area that
top zone
um is is showing signs of sort of
moisture stress and if we were able to
irrigate which we which we haven't been
because our irrigator
got caught in a bad position and a lot
of the motors went under
and we're sort of waiting to to get
those tested and dried out so
yeah we've caught ourselves in a bit of
a tricky spot there but
we're starting to see some movement now
and hopefully some some rain or moisture
comes our way
you

Kywong Flat

The effectiveness of extreme rainfall recovery at Kywong Flat reflects the different pasture establishment stages and soil types of the sites, prior to the March 450mm in 6-days event. On F6, a combination of the paddock being sown to Prairie Grass in early March, and a good free draining soil, has delivered good recovery and grazing is imminent.

F3 had not undergone winter sowing prior to the rainfall event, leaving poor quality silage to be cut from the site followed by Italian Ryegrass sowing in early April. Establishment has been slow. Weather events have affected access to soil moisture technology data with power cut to the base station mid-March. Adam is currently relying upon visual decisions once again and realises he needs to reinstate the pump to the river and consider starting to irrigate.

3:11

Kywong flat irrigation update 2021 Feb April

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Kywong flat irrigation update 2021 Feb April

good day everyone
i'm adam forbes and welcome back to
colon flat where we have
our two soil moisture monitoring probes
under the starting smarter irrigation
project
it's been fairly wet since we last spoke
certainly the biggest flood i've
seen we had over 450 mils in a couple of
week period
um yeah a fair bit of inundation on a
number of our paddocks a lot of fencing
damage and we weren't actually able to
cross the cows
to this side of the farm for about 15
days so
that was it that was a challenge as well
um
look we've been able to push through
with a variety of strategies including
spinning some seed on using the
helicopter straight after the flood and
just trying to yeah make decisions as
soon as we could
um down in f6 it's a little bit lighter
draining soil and we were lucky enough
to have um
signed some prairie grass prior to the
the flood event
um and look it wasn't a complete
disaster we did spin a little bit of
seed on afterwards to um
just make sure of that population um
just going the prairie grass down there
we did a small trial last year
um just really chasing that that flatter
pasture growth curve and
trying to get the value from our
loosening chicory and not out compete it
with rye grass in the first year or two
um up in f3 look it did get fairly messy
after the flood we had kayak and past
parliament that was well past
ideal grazing and
we had other paddocks that were more of
a priority to graze after the flood
and look the cows wouldn't have utilized
it anyway we would have been left with a
lot of mulch and that sort of thing
thatcher mulch on the paddock so we were
lucky enough to have the corn silage
harvester here at the time and
um did about 25 hectares of pretty
ordinary
grass silage which will hopefully um
yeah
hopefully it'll make some dry cow
sausage over winter but it really set us
up to be able to sew those paddocks
quickly um so look we we saw an italian
rye
into these paddocks and we'll be
following them pretty hard with nitrogen
over the next couple of weeks to um
yeah just make up for the bit of
leaching that happened in the flood
um we've actually had a little bit of a
problem with our soil moisture probes on
our end
um we lost electricity to the base
station during the flood and
hopefully we'll get that back online
quite soon um
we are starting to see a little bit of
drying out happening um
so need to be make that a priority to
get the soil moisture probes back online
get the pivot pump back in the river and
think about irrigating again but look
hopefully there's a little bit of
rainfall forecast this afternoon and
tomorrow we might um have a little bit
of a
saving grace there for a few more days
[Music]

 

November 2020 - January 2021

Bowman Farm

The sorghum crop was watered-in during early November. Although a dry-spell mid-November to mid-December saw soil moisture decline, the low water use of the developing plant, together with the RAW “bucket” already at full point, this had little impact on overall soil moisture. 

See how Tom then used forecast weather information to manage the forage crop during a December to January period that saw over 500mm of rainfall.

2:55

Bowman farm seasonal update Nov Jan 2021

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Bowman farm seasonal update Nov Jan 2021

[Music]
hi i'm tom and welcome back to bowman
farm
um today i'm joined by peter beale from
hunter lls
and we're here to talk about the results
of the last three months of activity
with our soil moisture monitoring
program
so tom you sowed this uh sorghum crop in
uh 21st of october you watered it up
with yeah yeah we had to water it up um
it was pretty
it went in pretty dry there was there
was good moisture at depth
but um there wasn't really any enough
moisture there to activate the seeds so
we watered it up and it did get a pretty
slow start
yeah and so but since then you haven't
irrigated because there's so much rain
yeah so we got it up and got it going
and then
uh since then uh we saw that we had 50
mil
um sort of towards the end of october
and then
another 50 throughout november and then
we hit december
and the rain really came down we had 321
mil for the month
yeah and and up to 500 now although yeah
yeah and then another 200
for january so it's um it's just
starting to move now
it looks pretty good it's coming on to
its fourth grazing
on a 14-day rotation and um
i think we yeah we've run through a few
steady patches
through december and stuff but it's
starting to move pretty well now
yeah so looking at the data it's
experienced a period of waterlogging
nearly a month
yeah yeah so december you know while the
weather was good
it just kept coming and then and even
though it was established and it had
been grazed twice
it still just wasn't um getting the
opportunity to grow
uh it's just under severe water logging
and the
on the graph it's beyond its full point
so
um yeah and the rest of the farm was
similar so
we couldn't get on to apply nitrogen and
i think we experienced a fair bit of
denitrification uh through water logging
yeah
so yeah and we can see the water running
off now yeah
it's it's pretty full so what was your
response to
um well i guess i guess probably
we didn't see anything really until the
last couple of weeks
we kept grazing as we could
and then we came in and as soon as we
could after the grazing and drive on the
paddock
we hit it with 120 kilos of urea and
it's it's really enjoyed that so it's
three days from grazing now
and it probably could get grazed today
realistically yeah yeah
no it looks great
[Music]

Kywong Flat

Adam strategically irrigated the different soil/ plant types, under the single pivot, of his monitored paddocks of F6 and F3 to maintain his RAW “bucket” during the mid-November to mid-December dry-spell. With good soil moisture and mid-range evapotranspiration (ETo) growth rates were ideal.

Using weather forecasts to make informed decisions, learn how Adam allowed soil moisture to decrease before predicted rainfall events lifted soil moisture beyond full-point.

6:09

Kywong flat seasonal update Nov-Jan 2021

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Kywong flat seasonal update Nov-Jan 2021

g'day everyone i'm adam forbes

welcome back to kai wong flat where

we've got our

soil moisture monitoring probes today

i'm here with peter beale from the lls

and we're going to have a chat about

what's happened here in the last three

months

adam so yeah three months ago was

starting to get a bit dry on this block

um so what

what did you do through that late

november period yeah look through

mid to late november feet we um we're

irrigating fairly regularly

on particularly f3 the the top end of

the pivot where we had the um

the italian rye grass um sewn down

we were really trying to um just really

push that growth along through that late

november period while that rye grass was

still quite vegetative

and we got great production through that

period

down in f6 we weren't irrigating as hard

that was a loosen chicory crop so it was

able to manage the hot

dry weather a little bit better than the

rye grass and um yeah we saw really good

growth rates down there as well and just

being able to manage that that readily

available water in the the optimum zone

much

that period yeah okay and in that early

uh seedling phase it really didn't use

much water did it no that's it we were

just um

we did did some very small irrigations

just to keep the

the seed germinating well and then

generally with our loosening chick we

actually

like to let it dry out once it's to that

point that it's um

it's going to survive and it's happy and

it's healthier so yeah we generally try

and let it dry out just so we can get

those roots down nice and deep which is

one of the

the great advantages of loosening

chicory is just that water use

efficiency and having those

those deep roots yeah and then we went

into this period where

nearly 500 mils of rain things are

really wet

what happened in the pastures and yeah

so

look we got we got particularly wet sort

of towards late december and then even

into new year

as most people know the farm's cut in

half by the barrington river so we

weren't actually able to access the

barrington side of the farm

for about 10 days from new year's day so

look that had a um

a fair impact on pasture quality as far

as look up in

f3 we had a lot of water logging and the

pasture quality really deteriorated

um and we've ended up just taking that

off as rough hay as

cafe just to um yeah we'll manage to

manage the

well for our autumn sowing period going

forward and just realizing that that

pasture quality wouldn't have been

milking care quality

yeah um to loosen and chicory we've had

to be fairly careful with um

well yeah we haven't had access to that

and as well um

just trying to not graze it on wet days

because it is a little bit susceptible

to plugging and

and it's a pasture that we want to keep

in place for the next three four

five years so we just really need to

baby it a little bit when it's wet

so look we have end up with a yeah

we've had to top a few loosened chicory

paddocks after they've been grazed and

grazing in a little bit longer rotations

than we normally would be

but look um with it with the bit of warm

weather sort of

around australia day and that sort of

thing i loosened you could really pick

back up again we were seeing a little

bit of um

yeah sort of moisture stress the other

way from being too wet and some disease

and that sort of thing in a bit look um

got we um put a potash blend on those

paddocks after the rain

um because yeah there's a fair bit of

nutrient leeching after that rain

during that rain just being able to um

yeah

have those few dry weeks it um sort of

has really improved to loosen again so

yeah okay and so we had a week of hot

weather last week

and you were just about ready to

irrigate based on what you saw with the

probes and

yeah look particularly up here in f3 we

were getting down into

some stress but using the the swan

systems

email service we've got a pretty good um

indicator that we're going to get some

significant rainfall

and um i think as i've said before

particularly on the top end of this

pivot we need to be very careful about

how wet it is and not over watering

because it is primed to water logging

and um

just with the um the weather forecast

and the la nina predictions we were

erring on the side of caution with the

irrigation

yeah so what um weather predictions are

you using mostly the

swan and anything else yeah swan um

i do use wx maps as well um

and as well as the bomb three month

forecast just trying to get a better

gauge of what's happening um

certainly don't treat them as gospel but

um

just yeah they're all tools in the

toolkit i suppose yeah

and so from here on in what's the

weather you know the forecast saying and

what what's your plans

yeah so look we're um we're certainly

still heading into our wedding period by

the looks with uh

and that's the thing if if you look at

where we're at now it's not going to

take a lot of rainfall to keep it wet

we're already in the first week of

february so

i don't know how much heat's in front of

us but when i looked at the heat

forecaster this morning

there's no hot weather forecast for the

next fortnight so that's another thing

to keep in mind

that our vapor transpiration is probably

going to be a lot lower than typical

february so

look we just want to um particularly f3

we want to manage this pasture well

going forward probably

down to a 10 11 12 day rotation um

trying to maintain the quality in the

kayak and the passy

um and probably using a topping every

second graze just to um

really prepare it for for an early

sowing we'll probably be looking at a

mid-march sewing with rye grass

maybe a light suppression up here just

to get it in nice and early

we generally like to get our pivot

brygrass paddocks in early just in case

we do get that hot weather that we have

got the ability to

to get water on quickly to the area yeah

and look the and chicory will just keep

poking along down there until sort of

early may um when we'll start prairie

grass into that

July - October 2020

Bowman Farm

The winter pasture of the study site finished strongly after strategic irrigation was used during a dry-spell following good rainfall.  

After 3 years of use, Tom Middlebrook reports that he has certainly changed his irrigation practices, making sure he responds to declining soil moisture and forecasted rising evapotranspiration (ETo). 

Soil moisture monitoring data shows that levels were maintained in the RAW but Tom certainly drew upon his soil water “bucket” to do this. The season will likely need increased irrigation rates as the newly sown Sorghum forage crop develops.

3:22

Bowman Farm seasonal video - July to October 2020

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Video transcript

Bowman Farm seasonal video - July to October 2020

hi i'm tom and welcome back to bayman
farm
since we last spoke in july we've seen a
number of events happen
happen here on farm july august was very
good to us
weather-wise we had good consistent
rainfall and as you can see from the
chart that kept our
kept our water availability um pretty
high and almost in a perfect position
there was a couple of times it got to a
full point
um but you know it just sort of dropped
away and sat in the
raw zone for quite a period of time as
we pushed into
early spring we saw a little bit of rain
early on in september
we've got 33 mil which propped things up
again
but then for the next 40 days until the
19th of october
we had no rain this saw us have to jump
into action and
and start the irrigator here behind me
plus others on other areas
we tried to maintain in the raw zone as
best we could we did about five passes
over the period of that time
and it kept things going fairly well we
it kept the
italian rye and the and the barley
kicking on okay
but we're still still under a decent
amount of stress
um we finished up with the italian
rye and the barley just over a week ago
we got 14 grazings off it since the
start of autumn
which we're very happy with and that's
now seen to spray this paddock out and
we've direct reeled sorghum
which is just starting to poke its head
up now
this year on our site we've gone for a
sorghum rather than maize for our summer
cropping period
our decisions around this were based on
the
um the purchase of of starch for us so
to buy in grain we can get it
at half the price of what it was this
time last year if not less
so we can purchase that starch we can
get it here for
between two and three hundred dollars a
ton and
that also means that we have this area
to graze
consistently throughout throughout
summer we're now milking
around 500 head instead of 300 so we
need that extra grazing area to take
pressure off the
rest of the milking platform and that'll
enable us to do it do that
if we if we do fall into a true wedge of
feed and with a true surplus then we can
go ahead and
and and pull a piece out to make into
silage but
yeah that's our reasoning behind our
summer crops so in terms of
us getting this organ crop
established and going ready for grazing
if need be
we can turn the irrigator on straight
away it's
it's ready to go and we're just going to
be constantly monitoring the
moisture meter seeing where the moisture
is at
it is a pretty hearty plant sorghum but
nonetheless we don't want to hold it
back at all
and we'll be just aiming to keep it
things in that raw zone
you

Kywong Flat

In the words of Adam Forbes, spring growth has been “phenomenal” because irrigation has been used strategically between rainfall events to keep soil moisture levels up. 

Adam says he would not have irrigated if the soil moisture monitors had not been in place, subsequently he has unprecedented yield of an estimated 100-120 kgDM/ha/day from his Italian ryegrass/ white clover pasture on paddock F3. 

A seven week turn-around from sowing to first grazing on F6 he also believes is due to irrigating at the right time, predominantly to keep the paddock from getting too saturated.

1:51

Kywong Flat seasonal video - July to October 2020

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Kywong Flat seasonal video - July to October 2020

since we last spoke
uh july and august were weren't too bad
we didn't get too wet and we weren't too
dry but it probably uh
i think it probably fooled us a little
bit that um we thought we're in a better
position than what we were with moisture
and then yeah september and early
october were extreme extremely dry we
went
over 40 days without any significant
rainfall
um and that's where we really found the
soil moisture meters
came into their own um particularly
particularly on f3
sort of towards mid to late september we
put on
look over four inches of irrigation just
based on what we were seeing on the soil
moisture probe in f3
and certainly i would not have put on
that much water if those
meters hadn't have been there and the
grass growth we got was absolutely
phenomenal like i've never seen ryegrass
grow
so quickly um i'd estimate they're up
around sort of 110 to 120 kilos of dry
matter a day which is just phenomenal
f6 look we've we sowed loose and chicken
on the 14th of september
um and we're just grazing that today
which is yeah look uh
about a seven week turnaround of grazing
so pretty happy with that so look we
were just keeping
uh the top um really nice and moist with
the center pivot irrigator it's really
good for germinating to loosen up even
in
quite challenging conditions um and we
can see that really obviously between
there's a small dry land section that
the center pivot doesn't irrigate that
was also planted
loose and chicory at the same time and
yeah the establishment's certainly not
near as good as under the center pivot
April - June 2020

Summary

The importance of closely monitoring soil moisture over the autumn period to inform irrigation start-up and scheduling decisions is highlighted in this period’s report from Bowman Farm and Kywong Flat, Gloucester. 

Although irrigation start-up was a little delayed, both Tom Middlebrook and Adam Forbes managed to keep soil moisture levels within the optimal zone for active plant growth and have reaped the rewards by maintaining a good rotation over an otherwise dry autumn.

2:14

Bowman Farm Seasonal Irrigation Report 2020 April June

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Bowman Farm Seasonal Irrigation Report 2020 April June

hi i'm tom and welcome back to bowman

farm

since we last spoke in april we've seen

a series of weather events most of which

have been in our favor

and a small patch of a trying time

we're in the site here of our moisture

meter which has been planted down to rye

barley straight out of the silo and

brassica as you can see

the brassica is still pushing on well

where this will be coming onto its fifth

rotation shortly

and growth rates are still excellent um

so we're we're doing pretty well at the

moment

we did see a slight dip in moisture sort

of from the 8th of

april through until the 21st of may that

saw us have to

kick the the irrigation into gear on the

70 hectares

that we had planted and in rotation

we jumped into things pretty quickly we

checked all the equipment

on this here we go to here behind us we

just had a flat tyre

and a hose which had been chewed by a

cockatoo

so we got that fixed but everything was

ready to go

from that point as the past few years we

were just able to

maintain things and and keep things

um in that in that ready state

for of moisture so that we could

maximize our fertility

as we've been trying to maintain and

really get the bang for our buck out of

this crop

over the lifespan of this project i

think you know it's boosted

uh mine and everyone else's on farms

confidence

drastically in terms of our decision

making around irrigation

being able to understand and know what's

happening underneath the surface

especially on this farm which is limited

to water most parts of the year

and knowing exactly when to turn the

irrigator on or if we are a week out

or we should have started or or if if we

can go

a little bit longer it allows us to make

sure our equipment is ready to go

and make really accurate decisions

you

1:27

Kywong Flat Seasonal Irrigation Report 2020 April June 1

 

February 2020

Summary 

Adam Forbes and Tom Middlebrook meet with the project to talk about the impacts of the drought and their plans for recovery after a number of good rainfall events.

4:44

Gloucester sites drought recovery February 2020

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Gloucester sites drought recovery February 2020

it's seen some excellent moisture
profile come away and extraordinary
growth from our base pastures one of our
main strategies that will be really
hinging everything on will be timing for
us we'll be planting this farm out as
per normal
with our pasture base being rye and
cereal but as I said the timing is going
to be everything we're going to put
areas like this in the fallow nice and
early now that we've seen some growth
Arthur some moisture I've been waiting
for those ways to come through we'll put
them in the fallow nice and early so
that when the time comes for us to plant
this when the when the the heat of the
day drops away a little bit then we can
then we can really attack and move
forward we want to be able to do that
really efficiently so we want areas
ready ready to ready to be signed and to
be turned around and to be grazing very
quickly there's no there's there is
immediate weather I'm here for us that
we have no water security school we have
no we have no irrigation water so for us
it's just going to be getting our sowing
done and we're going to be maximizing
the amount of nitrogen we can apply and
really working really stretching that
that cost to benefit ratio because a bag
of fertilizer for us is going to be
cheaper than bringing fodder in from
from our farm so that's it that's one of
our long-term strategies throughout
throughout the start of the season and
and sort of right through into spring
we're also going to be maximizing water
use efficiency efficiency on our other
farm which
we can probably irrigate I'm on the
bonus river right through the season so
for us that we've already got some
sorghum in there so we can hopefully
bring that home get a couple hundred ton
on the plastic to help help break up
that feed gap through water mass we say
this as we say this farm it is going to
be a juggling act still and know where
we you know in a surplus situation when
the wedge of feed that that we can
really sit back in and say okay we're
comfortable so as I said timing
everything maintain fertility and and
maximizing our inputs for applets
draw and the battery actually stopped
flowing for a number of weeks which was
quite challenging and very unprecedented
we've had to cease pumping for a week or
two occasionally over the the last ten
years but certainly not for an extended
period like this going forward look
we've purchased a lot of hay forward and
that's coming from mainly the riverine
or in Southwest speak that's because we
haven't Bay we basically haven't planted
any summer crop even on the back of this
Lake January Ryan we've made the
decision that we'll we'll just plant
cereals in the next week or two we just
feel as far as yeah our program guys
that the cereal feed it a little bit
better and we had a trigger point in
early January if we hadn't got rained
that we weren't gonna plant some a crop
and we've decided to stick with that as
far as the other paddocks on the milking
platform we do have about forty five
hectares in fellow at the moment we'll
be planting oats and turnips into that
as those paddocks towards the end of
this week and look on other paddocks
we're really just trying to hopefully
make a little bit late so if the cocky
and pass by land really get going we do
have around ten hectares a loosen and
chicory we're just getting its second
graze now and it's really high quality
feed so hopefully that'll help us manage
through these hot humid conditions as
far as the dry land paddocks go look
we'll be monitoring the Takaki how it
recovers we were quite concerned a
couple of weeks ago how well it would
recover after the the hot weather but
it's really taken off with this rainfall
and you also do have quite an area at
calm would say look we'll just monitor
those areas over the next couple of
weeks and and that will govern whether
we have to go through a full pasture
program on those or we've got enough
recovery from the existing steen that
the dry land species recover

 

February - March 2020

Summary

  • Forecasted rainfall events eventuated in February and March resulting in nearly 360mm of rain and no irrigation required on either farm.  
  • Rainfall has not only refilled the soil moisture profile on both farms, but has resulted in significant run-off, restoring flow to the Bowman and Barrington Rivers.  
  • The storage dam on Bowman farm, which was empty in late January, is now at full capacity providing twelve months supply of stock and irrigation water.  
  • The immediate forecast is for minimal rainfall, but ETo has dropped to a range 25% lower than 2 months ago.  
  • Rainfall will remain lower than this period in the coming three months with a forecasted 75% chance of between 100-200mm until 30th June.
4:04

Bowman Farm Irrigation Update - February to March 2020

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Bowman Farm Irrigation Update - February to March 2020

hi I'm Tom and welcome back to bone farm

since we last spoke in February we've

had some pretty drastic and very very

positive changes as you can see behind

me where you know in a nice position

with our pasture base we got some great

rain right the way through February I'm

sort of over 300 mill and that enabled

us to start planting we planted this

paddock behind me on the 28th of

February it was our second paddock

planted what's in is barley straight out

of the silo as grain for most people

this year to put in the ground that's

going to be pretty hard to get italian

ryegrass night and just a Brassica so

the idea is to have the the grains come

through and the Brassica for early feed

and the night will come through after

that yeah so we planted this piece

behind me on the 28th of February it's

our second piece that went in and we got

a 32 day turnaround on our first piece

which we started grazing two days ago

which is four days better than last year

so very positive start to the season

yes oh the bouncing back period for us

has been extremely positive coming away

from what was a torturous 12 months and

longer than that it's seen us being able

to have a massive amount of water

security as most as as we've had in four

years we've got a large storage dam

which is which is full and overflowing

it's been nearly four and a half years

since that's been the case so that's

excellent the rivers flowing well and we

haven't even had to think about

irrigating all year so it's really nice

that's enabled us to really stick to our

plan

stick to our plan of planting and and

start grazing as quickly as possible

it's allowed us to introduce 250 milkers

into the herd which was also a good

long-term strategy that we've we've been

aiming to do and it's also seen us be

able to store about 200 ton of sort of

latish summer crop which was sorghum

some of that was pulled off the milking

area and even we haven't got some cocoa

solids done as well so that meant that

we've got hay in the shed which was

meant to be used immediately in January

which hasn't had to be used we're slowly

dribbling through that just to maintain

some balance in the cows diet yeah but

in terms of feed base we've probably in

as good a position that we've been for a

long long time

so going forward for us now and being

prepared for what the season may have

install we're going to have a strong

focus on avoiding the purchase of Prada

we'll be doing that by maximizing

fertility in our pasture base and we've

already stepped away from one source of

protein which we probably aren't going

to need right now we are going to be

buying and contracting protein going for

dispatch with all the uncertainty

happening globally so that's gonna have

a big effect on us so we want to jump in

and and sort of secure some prices yeah

but still avoiding avoiding the fodder

cost maximizing you know our feed

conversion efficiency through good

fertility and optimizing our time around

grazing really strenuous on residuals

and then also having the water security

now going forward really opens us up to

be able to go in this most crop will go

here in here in November and we should

really be able to hammer that all the

way through summer and get a high

yielding crop off that to secure some

more feed

3:02

Kywong Flat February March update

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Kywong Flat February March update

man rainfall and the soil moisture

probes that reflected that our field

capacities been at fill or in excess in

some areas in f3 we were sent some water

logging so VA we haven't irrigated at

all since we last spoke f6 was sprayed

out and planted down to oats on the 3rd

of March and will be coming up to

grazing that shortly

at first grazing we will spend a little

bit of rye grass into that just the

plant population wasn't as good as what

we were hoping for f3 it was sown down

last week to an italian ryegrass with

some clover we'll just monitor the cover

of that paddock we didn't suppress it as

we're trying to build the

population up in that paddock so we'll

just monitor that paddock for shading

and weather we've got to go in there

early and nip it off just to look after

the rye grass seedlings

so yeah look bouncing back after the

terrible spring summer period we've been

quite aggressive with our early outs

planting and you look we started grazing

our first outs on the 31st of March so

look we've done that to really try and

tighten now our feed gap going into

autumn and winter we're still quite a

lot of hay coming out of Victoria for

the next little while as we don't have

any maize silage or rye grass silage on

our cropping box we have planted winter

wheat so we hope that they will help you

our supplementation through this winter

transition period

going forward just looking to mitigate

our risks of exposure to the seasonal

conditions we saw in the last couple of

years we are really looking towards a

more investment in irrigation

infrastructure whether that be some some

underground mines and potentially a hard

hose on on the southern end of this call

long flat platform and also looking at

replacing some bike shift on the

Grandview platform with a pivot look

we'll wait till we see some milk prices

for the next financial year before we

commit to those sort of things but I

think there's some terrific

opportunities with the RAI

Farm Innovation Fund at the moment and

various other forms of finance that are

really good times to shrining invest in

upgrade your business look with the

winter weight it'll give us a really

good opportunity to get our maize crops

in early and hopefully plant into some

moisture so if we do have a challenging

summer at least on the front foot with

the Amaze crops and look yeah they're

the main things we're doing going

forward to manage Ares

October 2019 - January 2020

Summary

  • From October to mid-January, there was only 70mm of rainfall at the sites- including an extreme dry spell from mid-November to mid-January with only 7mm recorded.  
  • Due to no flow in the Bowman River, the Bowman Farm site has had no irrigation water and so no summer crop was planted due to extreme soil moisture depletion.  
  • Kywong Flat has had intermittent access to water from the Barrington River. In early November there was a small opportunity to irrigate, then again for a 6 day period in late November.  
  • At this time the study site was irrigated for 24hrs/ day to lift soil moisture to above the refill point.  
  • With rising evapotranspiration (ETo) rates 6-8mm/day), soil moisture depleted quickly. A three day opportunity to irrigate in early December did not have a lasting effect.  
  • Both farms have purchased and hand-fed significant feed over this time. The effects of not growing summer crops will remain throughout the year.  
  • Since the 10th of January, 143mm of rainfall has been recorded. This has increased optimism and plans for recovery strategies have moved into full swing.  
  • Kywong Flat has access to irrigation water again. F3 & F6 are to be sprayed and prepared for early sowing to an Italian/annual ryegrass mixed pasture.  
  • Bowman Farm will use current moisture to also prepare the site and sow an Italian ryegrass/ cereal mixed pasture in approximately 6 weeks.  
  • Cereal seed will be expensive and difficult to source, though there are strategies planned to manage these costs separately for early and late sowing.  
  • Upcoming rainfall forecasts provide a promising immediate outlook.
1:59

Kywong Flat Irrigation Update: October 2019 - January 2020

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Kywong Flat Irrigation Update: October 2019 - January 2020

maintain irrigation and the river held
up but coming into November we had to
cease pumping we were lucky enough
towards the end of November that we got
about a week of irrigation using the
soil moisture meters where I would have
monitor how much water we needed to put
on during that week and we pretty well
had to irrigate the whole week to to get
the moisture levels back up to their
optimum we then in an another cease to
punt period and had a couple of days in
early December but after that we were
pretty well had no irrigation up until
yeah 10 10 12 days ago now so that was
certainly a very challenging period for
us the ryegrass held on until sort of
early December and the sorghum actually
performed quite well during those
challenging periods down the bottom into
this pivot in f7 and if I we've actually
sprayed out and that's in a fellow at
the moment hopefully towards the end of
this week so first week of February
we'll plan tonight's and turnips into
those paddocks their paddocks that will
hopefully end up as lucemon chicory
paddocks in the future so just really
looking to get some early feed out of
those paddocks and get some weed control
happening top end of this pivot it's
yeah the Kikuyu and past he's really
starting to take off now so hopefully
that'll support us through the next
couple of months while we're on getting
raw grass and oats and all established
in the other paddocks
2:57

Bowman Farm Irrigation Update: October 2019 - January 2020

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Bowman Farm Irrigation Update: October 2019 - January 2020

with some providing we've got the soil
moisture and you know looking for about
30 ml of rain that didn't come long
story short we ended up purchasing all
feeds right the way through until early
January we'll hand feeding all our stock
and it was yeah a bit of a juggling act
that's for sure
on the 8th of January we started to get
rain and since that since that point
we've had 135 million farm that's seen a
massive turnaround we've been able to
minimalize our purchase feeds and our
feed costs have dropped drastically and
we're starting to see some some positive
changes going forward now we've playing
around the basis that timing for us is
everything and so in saying that we've
gone in and have put in 40 hectares of
abeam I saw them on two different areas
obviously now on this paddock our plans
are for that the rest of the areas up
here that aren't Kikuyu base is we're
going to go ahead and put them into an
early fellow we've seen from the from
the rainfall that we got over the past
four weeks there's good soil moisture
around and it's gonna be really
important for us to maximise that going
forward if we if we don't get any
follow-up rainfall then at least we can
maximize the amount of moisture in the
profile and it's going to be great to
use this to be able to look at the
depths where that moisture is and how it
drops off so we'll be able to
confidently plant even if it doesn't
rains a little bit before and when it's
the timings right for us to plant we'll
still be able to look at our moisture
profile through this probe
and make an accurate decision and
confident decision on planning here what
will be going in with is a grass and
cereal crop which will then see out the
the winter period hopefully hopefully we
get some follow-up rain hopefully get
some runoff rain at the moment the
rivers still are completely dry and as
easy a large storage dam with only
enough stock water we'll have to have
some significant rain to see some decent
runoff and at that point then we can
irrigate but up until then it's just
timing and maximizing the moisture
profile that will receive
July - September 2019

Summary

  • Due to no flow in the Bowman River, Bowman Farm has had not access to water for the period. 
  • With only 42mm of rainfall, the irrigation area has been taken out of the milking platform.  
  • Kywong Flat has access to water from the Barrington River.  
  • Frequent irrigations, increasing over the period from 8mm to 25mm 7 day totals, have generally maintained soil moisture at adequate levels as Eto (2.3- 4.2mm/d) has increased.  
  • At this point in time soil moisture levels are now declining across both sites at Kywong Flat as a result of increased plant water demand and recent windy, dry days.  
  • Kywong Flat plans to manage irrigation to assist paddock F6 Annual Rye and paddock F3 Italian Rye persist through until mid to late November.  
  • The November rainfall outlook is 75% chance of 25-50mm, with a total of 100-200mm for the 3 month outlook.  
  • As Eto rises SMM should be closely monitored and response should see increased irrigation frequency and rates. 
April - June 2019

Summary

  • Soil Moisture Monitoring (SMM) was used to gauge the effectiveness of rainfall events in mid-April, early to mid-May and early June (totalling 100mm) during the period.  
  • Kywong Flat used strategic irrigations of 8mm-13mm to supplement rainfall across both F3 and F6 to successfully keep both sites in the optimal soil moisture range. 
  • Importantly, F3 has not suffered from the saturated soils of previous years.  
  • Bowman Farm has struggled to raise soil moisture levels within the optimal range but maintained levels above 50% Plant Available Water- not ideal but enough to justify N applications which help to drive establishment.  
  • Again, Bowman Farm has been restricted by limited water availability from the Bowman River which has seen soil moisture decline throughout June.  
  • The July to September rainfall outlook is tough with a 75% chance of 50-100mm. Eto should remain low over this period with daylight hours increasing.
February - March 2019

Summary

  • Soil Moisture Monitoring (SMM) was used to gauge the effectiveness of regular medium rainfall events (totalling 235mm) during early February and throughout March.  
  • Mid to late February was a dryer period, however, evapotranspiration (Eto) rates were lower than January at 4-6 mm/day.  
  • The dry, warm conditions of late January restricted water availability to Bowman Farm in early February, allowing only one irrigation of 30mm to be applied, followed by a strong rainfall event of 36mm.  
  • Although the forecasted maize crop yield increase was impacted, monitoring soil moisture levels after irrigation & rainfall allowed Tom to confidently continue the crop through until the 23rd of March, delivering a final yield estimated to equal the previous year (yield tests pending).  
  • Without monitoring in place, the crop would have been harvested earlier resulting in a yield reduction.  
  • Rainfall events throughout March resulted in run-off into the Bowman River and reinstated water flows.  
  • This now means there is an option to irrigate and supplement future rainfall as the winter mixed pasture (Rye/Wheat/Brassica), sown on March 28th , is establishing. The aim is to graze within 36 days of sowing.  
  • Kywong Flat may have considered irrigating during mid to late February on F3 when moisture levels fell below optimal, however, the dry spell was considered an opportunity to cut silage on this paddock which can be prone to water logging.  
  • Rainfall events then provided enough soil moisture to increase levels into the optimal range by early to late March, providing a 2nd silage harvest after approximately 25 days. 
  • Kywong Flat’s F6 was primarily within the lower end of the optimal range throughout the period.
November 2018- January 2019

Summary

  • Rainfall in October (120 mm) provided a big boost to river flows and gave confidence to sow maize on Bowman Farm using irrigation to help with establishment.  
  • SMM was used to gauge the effectiveness of good rainfall (124mm) in late December. 
  • This allowed both farms to use irrigation as a supplement for the three weeks following, resulting in more efficient water and power use. 
  • High crop evaportranspiration (ETo) rates of 6 to 8 mm/day in late January resulted in a steep decline in soil moisture levels.  
  • With water still available, irrigation was applied on both farms, however, was less effective than previous applications. 
  • Kywong Flat may have considered increasing rate of application but was restricted by a management strategy of using off peak power only, limiting irrigation events to 12mm due to system capacity during overnight off peak periods.  
  • Taking ETo into consideration, effective wetting was 4-6mm each application only. 
  • Reducing plant competition (spraying of paddocks) resulted in more efficient water use.
3:55

Summer Irrigation Decisions at Bowman Farm, Gloucester, NSW

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Summer Irrigation Decisions at Bowman Farm, Gloucester, NSW

welcome back to Bowman farm we're here

at our site for our soil moisture

monitoring program behind me is our maze

Club which has been in for the summer

we're coming towards the back end of the

season the crop went in in the last week

of November as the crop went in we had

to do a top-up of about an inch inch

with the irrigator and then not long

after that we saw a decent rainfall

towards the end of the year we saw about

five to five inches fall between men

which we've had to pop ups with the

irrigator as well as an extra 40 ml of

rainfall it's seen the crop keep on

fairly well up until this point and

currently within the past eight to ten

days we've seen a fairly drastic decline

water is a massive limitations for us

here at Bowman farm and things are

starting to take effect but management

is never been better

so the way we've made our irrigation

decisions over the summer season once

again water being a large limiting

factor has seen as seen us have to make

decisions for proactively rather than

reactively which is stepping on bad

things I tried for as long as possible

to keep this paddock in in the total

refill position it may not be the most

efficient water use for the plant or for

the soil but now as we see a pretty

drastic drop off I feel it's been a good

decision it's been good to be able to

monitor that up until this point so that

I could try and boost the crop for as

long as possible

I guess in terms of what could I have

done differently I feel like there's not

a lot we could have done considering the

water limitations and the fact that

we've had other four other passes that

have need of water throughout the season

as well what I have been able to do is

compare this exact crop to the same time

last year

I've been able to manage this and I know

for a fact that we've had we've already

got a better yield than what we did at

this stage at the crop last year just

through being able to monitor what the

soil is doing it's really put us in a

much stronger position and I think we'll

see a better yield total when the crop

comes off

by management for the finishing of the

crop I would anticipate the crop will

come off within four to six weeks in

that time we'll have to make some

serious decisions about getting some

more water on here providing there's no

rainfall considering the rapid drop-off

of the moisture levels and a rapid

increase in the soil temperatures with

send soil temperatures 30 degrees at

night o'clock in the morning and that

sort of thing is just really affecting

the finishing of the maize so we'll be

making the best decisions we can to try

and get as much water on here as

possible the level of effect that has

it's fairly unsure but we'll just be

doing everything we can to try and

maintain

4:13

Summer Irrigation Decisions at Kywong Flat, Gloucester, NSW

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Summer Irrigation Decisions at Kywong Flat, Gloucester, NSW

g'day I'm Adam Forbes and welcome back
to : flat currently was standing on the
955 hectare center-pivot that we're
lucky enough to have to oil moisture
probes through the starting smarter
irrigation project from LLS we've been
using these probes to make some better
decisions over the last couple of months
the last three months seasonally looked
at been some challenging times November
early November was quite quite good but
we certainly dried out towards the end
of that and into early December we were
lucky enough to receive five inches of
rainfall in mid-december which really
gave us some relief over the Christmas
and New Year period as well as Alaric
corn crops to establish quite nicely
January has been pretty ordinary thus
far with only an inch of rainfall and
some extremely hot conditions over the
last two and a half weeks and look we're
starting to see some stress on the
Barrington River which is historically
very reliable water the irrigation probe
saw moisture probes have really helped
our decisions us far we've been we feel
that we've been watering when the waters
needed and and not wasting water we're
quite focus not trying to use off-peak
power where we can so allowing us to
apply half an inch of rainfall overnight
during the week and more more water of a
weekend but it's just allowed us to
really keep on top of our moisture
levels and minimise plant stress where
possible
so on this site we've got to soil
moisture probes f3 and f6f-3 he's got a
summer Dominic here and past Palin
base which we over say with ryegrass the
ryegrass held on till early December I
think we might have got an extra few
weeks out of the ryegrass this year
through just better irrigation
management and making sure that that rye
grass plant was received the least
amount of stress as possible f6 is a
loosen and chicory bass which was over
saying with rye grass the rye grass is
now running out we've done a grass spray
on it so this is decrease the plant
population but the listener chicory is
to us quite a good population there the
less in chicory is a little bit
shallower soil as against if if 3 which
is a heavier soil so that's just allowed
us to look at the two different probes
and really make decisions as far as your
basic the water use and and how much
water is really needed to maximize that
readily available water
as far as things we do differently look
I'm fairly confident with nice and
pretty good decisions this year from
just being better informed of our soil
moisture levels looking back at last
year I think look compared to last year
would probably minimize water logging I
think we're probably doing some
over-watering last year and also seeing
some plant stress at the opposite end
this year our rainfall event in December
really allowed us to start at square one
again and get full refill and since that
rainfall event was really kept on top of
things and it was just a process of
learning and working with the soil
moisture probes to see how much water is
really required to keep it at that
optimal level
look over the next few weeks water could
become the meaning factor the back to
River is under some medium-level stress
at the moment and we are reaching some
critical points so if we don't receive
rainfall within the next week or so
we'll be on some form of parking
restrictions look at least up until this
point we have been managing our water
efficiently and keeping right on top of
that and maximizing our plant growth

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