Climate-Smart Irrigated Cropping
The cotton industry in NSW is valued at over $2 Billion (2020/21) and is an important industry for its fibre. Like all primary industries the cotton industry is feeling the effect of climate change, particularly with variable and reduced rainfall.
Working with Researchers from the DPI Water Research and Development team, the Digital Agriculture team trialled the use of digital technologies to improve water balance monitoring across the irrigated cropping operations at Trangie Agricultural Research Centre (TARC).
TARC is a 3900ha DPI research farm in Central West NSW, with 300ha of the property is used for research on best irrigation practice and technology. Water used for irrigation at TARC is delivered from Burrendong Dam, more than 100km away, via the Macquarie River and dedicated channels from which it is pumped through the lateral move irrigation system onto the crops.
In 2020 the Digital Agriculture team installed sensors and a long range, wireless network (LoRaWAN) gateway at TARC to evaluate how technology can be used to better manage irrigation through improved monitoring and decision making.
Sensors include soil moisture monitoring; lateral move monitoring (pump and pressure sensors); radar water flow through the irrigation channel; and water out-flow into on-site storage. Canopy temperature sensors were also installed by a commercial provider.
Weather station at Trangie
Tank level sensor at Trangie
Water level sensor in dam at Trangie
Using the amount of water applied to the field (irrigation and rainfall), and the estimated crop water requirements, researchers were able to calculate the water balance to determine how effectively water was being used across irrigated cotton on the research station.
Multilevel soil moisture sensors indicated variability in the soil moisture at different depths, possibly due to the variations of water application through pressure differences. Additional sensors were installed to monitor the pressure across the lateral move, improve the quality of measurement data in the irrigation channel, and measure outflows to complete the balance equation.
Research is being continued to model the movement of water from delivery to use and recovery, which has implications for water management, energy use and minimising resource losses.
Outcomes from the pilot
The digital agriculture industry for irrigated cropping is in the early stages of development. For this reason, there are several limitations in the sensors that are available.
Noted during this trial was the deterioration of sensors after 1 – 2 years, with a high replacement cost, and the lack of Internet of Things (IoT) telemetry available for certain sensors, notably the pipe flow sensor, meaning that the data from this sensor could not be used in real-time to help farm managers get a complete view of the water balance across the lateral move system to make decisions.
As part of the digital trial a commercial AgTech provider was engaged to provide specific farm data from a commercial device. Similarly, the lateral move manufacturer collected a lot of data, but was unable to share that data for real-time use. The providers were unable to provide access to the data through an Application Programming Interface (API), which hampered the use of the data in integrated systems decision making. This lack of interoperability of devices across the AgTech ecosystem is a potential limitation of the adoption of digital technologies on farm. If data is not available to be shared through an API the ability to integrate that data across digital systems, and use that to make timely decisions, will reduce the effectiveness of digital technologies on farms.
Much of the data collected in this study was historical data from the sensors after an irrigation event occurred and the farm manager was therefore not using any data from the sensors at the time to make irrigation decisions. For producers to use data to make management decisions it must be real-time data. It can be useful for producers to know how water moves through their systems but without up-to-date data the improvements in irrigation efficiency are limited.
The study shows that the estimation of water balance in an irrigation system is possible using the real time data measured by supported sensors. Additional sensors, including a water meter to measure volume of water pumped from the storage, will be used in this season to improve the estimate of how water is used and where it is going. Research so far shows that IoT technologies can be used to monitor in real-time the irrigation efficiency and water balance across a large irrigation operation.
References
NSW Department of Primary Industries (2023) Cropping: Cotton accessed April 30, 2024
Irrigated Cropping Pilot Poster
(PDF, 12121.69 KB)
Juanita and John Hamparsum
Sibling team John and Juanita Hamparsum are keen adopters of novel technologies, practices and techniques. They admit they don't always go to plan, but also know that without trying anything new there's no chance of improving.
Climate-Smart Farmer Stories
Hear from farmers who are adapting to the changing climate.This work was part of the Primary Industries Climate Change Research Strategy and was funded by the NSW Government’s Climate Change Fund.