Irrigation Journal Summer 2011

The Journal FOR Irrigation PROFESSIONALS

WHY TRAINING IAL’s strategy for the future SMART APPLICATION case studies

CODE OF CONDUCT for certified professionals

w w w. ir r i gati o n. o r g. au

In This issue: IAL training calendar Online training Managing working capital Smart surface irrigation School sportsfield makeover Avoiding installation defects

The Official Journal of Irrigation Australia limiTed

SUMMER 2011 • Volume 26 No 04

ISSN 0818–9447 PP 245227/00029

TASSIE conference showcase

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Contents Features smart application feature Retrofit reduces water use

12

Smarter monitoring to manage irrigation

14

Precision fertigation and chemigation

16

professional development feature Why IAL provides training

18

Code of conduct for certified professionals

20

Introduction to irrigation course a winner

21

Online overcomes barriers to learning

22

Flexible learning with PROwater

24

Energy efficiency is now accountable

25

National Occupational Licensing system

26

IAL Training Calendar

28

6

Regular Items Chairman's Report

2

CEO's Message

3

From the Editor

3

Irrigation Technology: Agriculture

4

Irrigation Technology: Urban

8

Around Industry

10

IAL News

30

Irrigation Research

36

The Big Issue

38

Opinion

40

Smart Watermark

42

Npsi Irrigation Insights

43

Business Feature

44

Bookshelf

45

State Roundup

46

Icid Insights

47

Contractors Corner

48

New Products and Features

50

Pump Feature

52

12

43 Water saving technologies help nursery future

Standards 60

ON THE FRONT COVER Gary Andrews (l) from Smart Water Projects inspects Heany Park Primary School's sports field with Gavin Jones from Hunter Industries after it received a total makeover, which included installing a new irrigation system. See page 8.

10 16 Summer 2011

1

Welcome

IAL SUPPORT office PO Box 863, Mascot NSW 1460 P (02) 8335 4000 F (02) 8335 4099

chairman’s REPORT

www.irrigation.org.au CEO: Ian Atkinson Email: ian.atkinson@irrigation.org.au

PUBLISHER www.commstrat.com.au SYDNEY Level 12, 99 Walker Street North Sydney NSW 2060 T (02) 8923 8000 F (02) 8923 8050 MELBOURNE Level 8, 574 St Kilda Road Melbourne VIC 3004 PO Box 84, Hampton Vic 3188 T (03) 8534 5000 F (03) 9530 8911

EDITORIAL Editor: ANNE CURREY Production Manager: Russell Montgomery Creative Director: Timothy Hartridge Graphic Designer: Annette Epifanidis

ADVERTISING Sales Director: Brian Rault E brian.rault@halledit.com.au T (03) 8534 5014

Advertising Advertising in this journal is managed by CommStrat on behalf of Irrigation Australia Limited. Irrigation Australia Limited takes no responsibility for the technical accuracy of article content. All contact with businesses and organisations about advertising is made

by CommStrat sales staff, who must identify themselves and the fact that they work for CommStrat on behalf of the IAL. No special consideration will be given to any advertisers as far as editorial content or front cover material is concerned. Decisions about editorial content and the front cover are the prerogative of the editor and the National Board of the IAL. Advertising enquiries should be directed to the sales director.

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Ideology is defined as a collection of ideas - a way of looking at things – and, as a community, we accept the dominant ideology without question. As views depart more from the norm they are viewed with increasing suspicion and hostility. Ideology typically changes slowly and organisations, particularly political groups, spend a lot of time trying to influence it.

When I was a mature age student in the 1990s a lecturer set me an essay topic to evaluate whether ideology was still a factor in Australian politics. The conclusion I reached was that it was not and that, as the basis for policy, ideology had been supplanted by a new reality where policy is driven by pragmatism and populism and the need to gain and hold power based on what opinion polls indicate is the will of the masses.

You could take such responsiveness as a plus, if only it were not driven by self interest rather than a desire to give the public what they want. Sadly, a direct consequence of this is a media that no longer feels the need to inform the public in a way that it can respond intelligently to the questions and issues which shape our daily lives.

Of course, ideology is not all good: ideology that is blind or fails to adapt to new understanding or science is just as flawed. In reaching a comfortable position with our own personal and professional ideology, we must ensure we do not fall into the traps of believing that, because we have always thought one way, we need not change. I have witnessed this in recent discussions about irrigation.

In urban areas, the drought brought considerable interest in artificial turf. Many of our urban members suffered as purchases of irrigation equipment plummeted and sales of artificial turf soared. But herein lies the basic problem: this should never have become a debate about artificial versus real turf.

Surely we would have been smarter if it were our members promoting artificial turf - not for general use but for those areas which it is properly suited, e.g. for entry statements and verges, where aesthetics take precedence over environmental and health benefits.

We would have then been free to properly promote irrigated turf for all other areas for passive and active recreation, for the cooling effect around households etc. I have also heard people grumble when they see a plumber

take on irrigation work. Rather than fighting this as the end of the world as we know it, we should be embracing them as potential members and showing them the many benefits that membership of IAL brings.

Similar debates have also sprung up in the rural sector, particularly over surface and pressurised irrigation.

Individual ideology may say one method is always superior, but our collective ideology should accept that the circumstances of each application should decide what is used: is irrigation at the site environmentally sustainable; what are the initial, operating and whole of life costs; what level of knowledge and hence change is required of the operator; and can the water be delivered to and around the property cost effectively?

The final decision should rest with the irrigator, who must not only outlay the capital but also integrate operation of the system with their current farm practices.

These examples show the great challenge for IAL- to argue as an industry association for the collective rather than individual good. To do that, we need to agree on a broad ideology. This ideology should be rooted in our constitution, given breath by the board, take shape in our strategic plan, be evident in the in the ethos of the CEO and be collectively embodied in the actions of our membership at large.

My aim is to use this year’s December board meeting – one set aside for discussion on strategy – to try to refine these elements by testing the relevance and adequacy of each and suggesting changes to address any shortcomings.

Reaching consensus among the board will be critical, for if we cannot achieve buy in at this level it will be impossible to convince you, the membership at large, of its worth. I believe that if we can achieve this, we will be well prepared to face the challenges that the future holds.

Peter Toome IAL National Chairman

EditorIAL

We have what I think is a cracker edition of the journal to finish off 2011.

CEO Message

Training and professional development and smart application are our features.

Professional development has been

Hello again to our members and interested observers.

In my first column I spoke about enjoying this job and I’m pleased to say that is still mostly the case! There are certainly periods of worry and stress as we make the necessary transitions towards a more secure future but they are outweighed by the many interesting and enjoyable times.

Wasn’t Launceston Conference a beauty!

This would have to rate as one of the best IAL conferences I have ever been to, thanks to the tireless efforts of the organising committee and Sane Events. Committee members were: Chris Thompson (chair), from Macquarie Franklin; Trevor Le Breton, from IAL; Kelvin Montagu, from Colo Consulting; and Sue-Ellen McTaggart, from Sane Events. While I didn’t get to many of the concurrent sessions because there always seemed to be another meeting or I was discussing IAL business with various people, the survey feedback is overwhelmingly positive.

A third of delegates who attended (or 118 people) responded to our survey and their feedback was very positive: 73% rated the value of the conference at 4 or 5 (scale is 1 poor to 5 excellent), 24% rated it at 3 and only 3% as a 1 or 2. On the concurrent sessions 95% rated them as 3 or better, but workshops not so high with 13% rating them as 2 or 1. Many people commented on the need to manage speakers’ time better so delegates can move between sessions. This has been a problem with concurrent sessions for many years and we are yet to find a solution. On the social front, delegates were again very pleased with 30% rating them at 5; 46% at 4, and the rest at 3. The dinner came in for a lot of positive comments so congratulations to the organisers.

IAL finances are on track

As I have said before, we are operating a deficit budget for 2011-12 as we transition away from the Horticulture Australia Limited (HAL) project funding that used to support our IDOs. We now rely on income from members’ fees, conferences and events, and training (through Irrigation Training Australia, our registered training organisation).

After the first quarter this year I can report we are on track to deliver on the approved budget. The good news is

that Launceston conference achieved a surplus well over budget – so thanks to everyone who attended and our generous sponsors. On the downside, training income was below expectations (because we didn’t have numbers for the Irrigation Essentials training school at Ballarat) and regional operating costs were over budget. Despite this, and after taking into account the swings and roundabouts, we are on track to meet budget.

one of IAL’s core activities and our lead article by Trevor Le Breton outlines the strategy for the future in providing members with courses that are relevant and accessible. A number of new courses and partnerships have been developed

by IAL, and we feature two of these – the Introduction to Irrigation courses, and courses using online delivery.

Special interest groups delivering

In our other feature, smart irrigation, we

IAL has a number of special interest groups (SIGs) for specific irrigation technologies. Their aim is to provide a forum where members from all sectors can share technical knowledge. SIGs so far established are for water supplier members (IWS SIG), drip irrigation (DRIP SIG), and centre pivot and lateral move irrigation (CPLM SIG). A best practice surface irrigation SIG is being developed, and best practice urban (landscape irrigation), groundwater and evapotranspiration SIGs are planned.

The IWS SIG held a successful workshop just recently in Canberra about the implementation of ACCC rules on water charging, and the DRIP SIG and CP&LM SIG both held successful meetings in Launceston. We are also getting significant interest and ideas about new SIGs from the membership so it looks like the model is working.

Resourcing and managing them will be a challenge but I see the SIGs as critical to our long-term success.

have a selection of stories from around

All the best Ian Atkinson CEO Ph: 0439 009 338

Australia that examine how the irrigation industry continues to respond to the challenge of applying water efficiently as possible while maintaining production – whether it be on a farm or in an urban setting.

The IAL team has also been busy developing partnerships with companies as a way of improving services to members. One of these partnerships is with One Path, which provides superannuation services, and another is with bpworkingcapital, which provides a number of services to help members manage debtors and working capital. There are articles about both arrangements so if you are interested in super or managing your capital better, these could be just the ticket.

With these features and our regular columns, I hope you find this edition a great read.

I will get in early too and wish all our readers a happy Christmas and all the best for 2012.

Anne Currey Editor in Chief

Summer 2011

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TECHNOLOGY: Agriculture Smart SURFACE IRRIGATION: what makes iT work?

The irrigation industry has moved on a long way from poor flood irrigation. With furrows, drills, bays and basins we can achieve high productivity with attractive ratios of yield-to-water use. In this article Bill Williamson takes a look at some options.

In cotton, the technical level of irrigation water productivity has at least doubled in the 40-year history of the Australian industry and the gross levels of yield/ML at the farm scale have dramatically improved. But what made this happen and how will we take the next steps across most Australian irrigation farms which use surface irrigation? Surface irrigation accounts for roughly half of the productive water use in any given year across Australia, so it is a very important technology to understand and a very cheap entry point for improvement. Even in a very dry time in Australia, 46% of water applications were made using surface systems (see Figure 1).

It is a valuable technology because it is well suited to cropping rotations and is not so hungry for capital. These are key concerns in a variable climate.

For farms with more than one type of irrigation

Sprinkler 34%

Surface 46%

Drip 20%

Figure 1. Volume of water delivered in Australia by irrigation technology, interpreted from ABS 2009–10 water use and 2003-04 application methods. Rice is included as a surface system but in this analysis makes up less than 4% of total water volume. Pasture watered by surface methods makes up 16% of volume.

4

system, surface irrigation is used opportunistically, with the more reliable water rights often directed to the sprinkler or drip systems in dry times.

As irrigation kicked off in Australia, getting rid of holes, gilgais and minor hills greatly increased the uniformity of crop growth. Levelling with land planes, buckets and scrapers was (and often still is) an important foundation to improving surface irrigation. Field days to demonstrate this technology were fairly straightforward; diesel fumes, electro-hydraulics and laser beams striking through the dust. A bush surveyor could gather data during the year, punch it into Compute-A-Grade and, with a few iterations the farmer, the designer and the earthmover could greatly improve water productivity on most sites. Drainage recycling was often implemented with the levelling project.

Flow rate the next improvement So what can we fix next, now that level land is an accepted rule of thumb for best practice surface irrigation?

A research team led by Rod Smith in 2009 looked at flow rate and its effect on surface irrigation performance. They demonstrated that faster irrigations leading to much higher application efficiency also applies to south-eastern Australia.

It has been shown that surface irrigation efficiency is very sensitive to flow rate, and that low and inconsistent flows greatly affect surface irrigation performance. For those farmers who record the times and flow rates of irrigation events, this is a well understood concept. Recording irrigation events is a crucial part of the cycle which leads to better performance “Design – Measure - Improve”.

The feature of interest is flow rate per unit width of field being watered. There is a strong non-linear relationship where decreases in flow rate lead

to far longer irrigation events and, ultimately, large reductions in application efficiency. Less than optimal flow rates will invariably increase percolation below the root zone. A simplification of the effect is that the advance phase of irrigation

A tractor, bucket and survey equipment - tools of the first revolution. (Bucket image courtesy of Compute-A-Grade.).

down a field is relatively slow and depends on the “initial soil infiltration characteristic”, whereas the recession, after irrigation water is shut-off (or decreased in flow rate), is a rapid event determined by the “steady state infiltration characteristic”.

Decreasing flow rates and shut-off are transmitted across an irrigation field immediately, whereas it takes time to build the volume of water over the field as irrigation (re)starts.

As well as flow rate, many other features are also very important, including: • time of cut-off (stopping the irrigation) • soil type • length of the field • soil moisture content before irrigation (antecedent) • surface roughness from vegetation and other features • slope (a distant last).

These features are discussed in detail in “Improving Surface Irrigation in the GMID”, CRC for Irrigation Futures Technical Report No 08-3/10, which gives them a notional rank. Current hydraulic models suggest it is grossly uneconomical to try to influence application efficiency by changing slope, although waterlogging will be experienced on many soil types with slopes flatter than 1:2000, which is a common scenario for heavier, plains soils that are typically used to grow cotton and rice.

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TECHNOLOGY: Agriculture Photo: Automation of syphon irrigation is the greatest challenge for equipment manufacturers, although many systems have already been optimised to some extent.

FloodTech™ sensor

Figure 2. (far right) One of the most advanced commercial systems for managing surface irrigation is being commercialised by Rubicon, starting with the Flood Tech Sensor. Central to the system is the use of dynamic control where some field condition is measured and used to alter the irrigation event. Commercial systems will be set up in the Murray-Darling Basin this summer, so there is some evidence that the rubber is hitting the road on SMART surface irrigation.

Who gets to fix what?

The important issue for surface irrigation is that a base level of performance is set at the design stage and this mainly depends on matching the delivery flow rate to the soil’s infiltration rate. Because soils are fixed and delivery flow rates to farms within irrigation schemes are “hardwired” by the irrigation water provider, the irrigator’s ability to manipulate these factors is limited.

“Who” is involved at the design stage is different from region to region in Australia. On one hand, some design activities are streamlined and can be more easily focussed on performance, e.g. laser levelling was simple to implement because there were few people involved and generally no other organisations.

On the other hand, many farms in southern Australia have the rate of flow of bulk water delivery hardwired by the irrigation scheme that supplies them. It is a group decision where the pump or channel capacity must be shared among all the members of the scheme based on what can become a complex mix of hydraulic engineering and rulesbased scheduling. This rarely changes in a lifetime, but it is important to note that right now much of the investment by the Commonwealth Government is opening up this opportunity. This needs to be considered properly by those involved and there seems to be a good foundation for this in the modernisation project in Victoria.

With regard to soil type, irrigators can install systems that best suit the soils on their farm. The rice industry is a good example of how this strategy can be used to improve the performance of an irrigation system, with industry wide acceptance (group design) that rice is only grown on “rice suitable” soil.

For those farms with a choice of flow rate, it is fortunate that more progressive irrigators aim for higher rather than low flow rates and invest in it to some extent, since this makes irrigation events more predictable and reduces labour costs and the grunt 6

work of shovelling mud. This convenient nexus between labour, flow rate and efficiency has been a major driver of improvement so far, where it is understood. IrriMATE™, an infield surface irrigation evaluation service, has done a lot to develop this understanding.

At very high flows there is an upper limit beyond which it is hard to keep abreast of the manual operation of the equipment. The practitioners of “fast flood” know that the next steps are to automate.

Once again this shows factors outside of the control of the farm unit. For automation to be fully used, there needs to be a matching investment upstream in better flow rate and control of the water source.

SMART fixes on farm The remaining opportunity for improvement lies with managing the duration of each irrigation. It is clear that surface irrigation can be managed in real time, as an irrigation event occurs. This has been the “holy grail” for many years, but the most realistic example, the REIP system, has come out of a PhD project in the CRC for Irrigation Futures by Kanya Khatri. This work has shown that the science is well advanced and it remains to implement the technology with appropriate hardware in a commercial setting.

An important feature of smart surface irrigation and the resultant real-time control is being able to sense a variety of features, make computerised decisions and implement the result. For instance, it appears that soil moisture has a greater impact on the performance of bay irrigation systems

than it does on furrows. Recent field work by the CRCIF in the Goulburn Murray Irrigation District has helped researchers understand that, in bay irrigation systems, it is important to have good information about the soil moisture content just before irrigation if the irrigation event is to be fully manipulated. The technology to capture and process this information and then operate cheap actuation equipment is now available.

But SMART fixes need not only be at the top end of sophistication. An intriguing gadget from the US deals with a simple problem and in certain situations could give a dramatic improvement. The Ag Flag (www.ag-flag.com) can provide useful information for less than $1 per irrigation. “Water Boys” with radio transmitters have been around for many years in the Southern Murray-Darling Basin. Automated irrigation systems with simple time control have been around for decades and were extensively reviewed and became the subject of investment about 12 years ago. So there is something for everyone.

But to implement repeatable improvement of surface irrigation with defensible water savings it is clear that sophisticated technology will be required.

More information Williamson, B. 2010. Demonstration of Surface Irrigation Evaluation Technology in the Goulburn Murray Irrigation District. Part 3: Improving Surface Irrigation in the GMID. CRC for Irrigation Futures Technical Report No 08-3/10 http://www.irrigationfutures.org.au/news. asp?catID=9&ID=1215

This article was commissioned for Irrigation Australia magazine and was written by Bill Williamson of Narromine. Thanks go to Sam North of NSW Industry and Investment at Deniliquin for his comments. Readers interested in surface irrigation will be pleased to know that IAL is supporting the development of a special interest group on all types of surface irrigation. To get in touch, send an email to admin@precisionirrigation.org.au

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TECHNOLOGY: URBAN school sports field scores an 'A'

One of the first things done to the sports field was to level and reshape it and apply fertilisers, wetting agents and gypsum.

The recent long drought in eastern Australia has had a huge impact on many irrigated areas, both agricultural and urban, and has prompted businesses and organisations to rethink their irrigation strategies.

Heany Park Primary School in suburban Melbourne decided to go for a total makeover of its sports field as a result of the damage caused by seven years of drought. The result has been given the thumbs up by the school principal, David Rose, and students.

The drought almost totally destroyed the surface of the school’s sports field, which was covered with cool season grass. The school’s administration decided that rather than just replace the grass, what was needed was a strategic approach to managing the sports field and its irrigation system and rainwater harvesting.

Strategic approach to design and installation According to project manager, Gary Andrews from Smart Water Projects, this approach involved four key areas – ground improvements and drainage, turf selection, the irrigation system and water sources.

“The project began with the sports field itself,” said Gary. “An assessment showed that ground and drainage could be improved so we reshaped it and then cultivated, levelled and improved the soil as a way of establishing the foundation for a better playing surface,” he explained. Additional soil (150 m³ of it) was brought in to reshape the area and the area levelled and fertilisers, wetting agents and gypsum applied.

One of the things the drought did was to highlight the importance of turf selection. Rather than a cool season grass, it was decided to establish Village Green kikuyu, a warm season grass with low ongoing water requirements, as a way of reducing the area’s susceptibility to dry conditions in the future. Apart 8

on articulated risers. The system was split into eight separate zones, each operated by a Hunter 40 mm PGV solenoid valve mounted below ground in lockable valve boxes.

The system is controlled using a Hunter Pro C automatic irrigation controller incorporating the latest solar sync sensor that automatically adjusts the watering program to match the prevailing evapotranspiration rate. In essence, this is as close as you can get to a set-and-forget system that uses the least amount of water to keep the turf in the best condition. Smart Water Projects provides ongoing seasonal support for the entire system to ensure continuous reliable performance.

Rain water harvesting increases reliability

Water source was the final aspect of the makeover.

Bearing in mind the previous prolonged dry period, it was decided to install a rain water harvesting system from the school roof, including 230,000 L water tank and pumping station to supply water to irrigation New irrigation system system. Mains water provides a backup supply only installed when the tank runs out of collected rainwater.

The irrigation system was next. The existing This released the school from being totally reliant on system was considered to be redundant and even external supply, and the restrictions that result in dry refurbishment would not achieve the water efficiency times. With average rainfall it is hoped that this system outcomes that were required. will use less than half of the water of comparable “We recommended a new system that would school ovals not using water saving techniques. achieve the goals of water efficiency, durability, and The works started in late 2010 and were complete reliability. It would also be one that required very in early 2011, with the sports being used by students little input from staff on a week to week basis. This from Easter 2011. Funding for the project came was essential in an environment where the staff are from the Federal Government under their National already very busy,” said Gary.

School Pride Project part of the Nation Building The irrigation system chosen was designed and Economic Stimulus Plan. David Rose says that he installed using current best practice and incorporated and his students couldn’t be happier and have given the latest water efficient irrigation equipment. It the makeover an A. involved the installation of forty-two Hunter I-25 pop-up sprinklers with stainless steel risers, mounted Anne Currey, Irrigation Australia from having low water requirements, the kikuyu is also a very tough and self repairing turf type – perfect for a school sports and recreation area.

The completed sports field has been given an A by the school. Gary Andrews (l). inspects the newly installed irrigation system with Gavin Jones from Hunter Industries.

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AROUND INDUSTRY Correction

Toro scholarship winners bound for USA

Observant and Irrigation Australia would like to correct three errors in the article ‘Technology Key to Modernised Irrigation Schemes’, published in the Spring edition of the journal (page 50).

The irrigation scheme that is the subject of the article was incorrectly referred to as being managed by Darling Irrigation. It is, in fact, managed by the Marthaguy Irrigation Scheme. The $9.5 million funding for the Greening the Marthaguy Project was received through the Australian Government’s 'Private Irrigation Infrastructure Operators Program' (PIIOP) and not the 'Water for the Future Fund'. Sam Maroulis is the Managing Director of Darling Irrigation, which is a company that ‘... specialises in water use efficiency to make every drop and every dollar count with irrigation products and services for agricultural, industrial, government, civil and domestic water uses across the eastern states of Australia.’

A former golf course apprentice and a former racecourse manager, both from regional Victoria, recently won an eightweek study trip to the University of Massachusetts in the US to study turf management courtesy of Toro Australia.

Dan Oswin (above photo, right) and Rebecca Dynon (above photo, left) won the awards after being named Graduates of the Year at the 27th Annual Australian Turfgrass Conference and Trade Exhibition held in Adelaide.

Dan, from the Novotel Forest Resort Golf Course at Creswick in Victoria, won the Australian Golf Course Superintendents’ Association (AGCSA) Graduate of the Year award, while Rebecca Dynon, the former Racecourse Manager at the Tatura/Shepparton Racing Club, won the Turf Grass Association of Australia (TGAA) National Sports Turf Graduate award. Both awards are sponsored by Toro Australia.

The awards recognise outstanding graduates working in the turf industry and aim to provide opportunities to enhance personal development, professionalism, career progression and turf industry skills.

Toro provides the winners with an all expenses paid trip to the University of Massachusetts for a Turf Manager’s course, plus visits to the US Golf Industry Show and four major Toro production and research facilities.

All finalists were required to give a 20-minute presentation and answer questions from a judging panel, which also considered the graduates’ academic achievements, their ambassadorial skills and how winning the award would help their career aspirations.

Dan, who is only the second Victorian to win the award since it commenced in 1996, started his training at the Novotel Forest Resort five years ago as a labourer and then became an apprentice. He followed in his father’s footsteps, who has over 30 years experience in managing golf courses.

He hopes that the training will lead to a greater understanding in leading-edge techniques and practices, and developing contacts with experienced professionals working across the world.

Since winning her award, Rebecca has since moved to Melbourne to try and further her career in the sports turf field. Her interest in turf management and riding surfaces grew from being born into a horse riding family and 20 years as a track rider.

“To create a consistently good safe track in Australia with variable weather and limited budgets is a challenge,” she said.

“Different countries and turf managers have different techniques and if I can bring back some of these experiences and skills to Australia, then it will help make our industry even better.”

new marketing manager for toro australia In September, Toro Australia announced that it had

Toro Australia Director, Tim Emery, said Ben’s appointment

appointed Ben Hall as Marketing Manager for its Garden

was an important part of Toro’s water business restructure.

and Irrigation division. Ben is responsible for all of Toro’s

“We recently merged our professional irrigation and consumer

marketing activities relating to water distribution.

garden divisions to create Garden and Irrigation,” Tim said.

This is a position he is well qualified for as he has 17 years

“By centralising water distribution under one banner, we have

of sales and marketing experience in industrial and retail

been able to use our existing resources more efficiently and

markets. He has held several senior positions in both B2B

drive growth within this new division.”

distribution and manufacturing wholesale, mainly in the

Ben can be contacted on phone 0418 161 006

hand tool space.

or email ben.hall@toro.com

10

LET’S FOCUS OUR

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smart application

retrofit reduces water use

The recent drought was a driving force behind Brisbane’s Roma Street Parklands searching for more efficient ways to save water.

A recent retrofit of spray nozzles has helped reduce water use at Brisbane’s Roma Street Parklands by 20% while maintaining landscape health.

The parklands cover 16 ha in the heart of Brisbane’s CBD and have the distinction of being the site of the world’s largest subtropical garden in a city centre.

Two garden sections that were identified by management for an irrigation makeover were the Parklands ‘spectacle’ and ‘rainforest’ area.

“Rainforest” conjures up images of water – and lots of it. But lots of water was something not available to the Parklands, especially during the drought.

Instead, management opted to use the water they did have access to more efficiently. In doing so, they reduced their water consumption by 20%.

“While the parklands primarily derive water supply from storm water harvesting via its main on-site lake, the recent drought and associated water restrictions demonstrated the increasing importance of using water more efficiently and reducing run off,” Operations Manager, Paul Hoffmann, explained.

“As a result, the parklands implemented a number of irrigation improvements when the water restrictions were first introduced.”

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One of these improvements was to retrofit a total of 1166 more water efficient spray nozzles to the existing irrigation system in the spectacle and rainforest garden sections. The nozzles chosen were Toro Precision™ Series spray nozzles.

These nozzles have a precipitation rate of 25 mm/hr and replaced earlier model standard fixed arc and variable arc sprinkler nozzles, which had precipitation rates of 34.1 and 47.5 mm/hr.

Toro Territory Manager for the Irrigation Division, Chris Ashwood, said the Precision Series deliver a lot less water than other nozzles of comparable radius size, in part because each nozzle features a special patented chip which creates one or more high-frequency oscillating streams to achieve the desired arc and radius.

“This generates a more uniform droplet size that reduces misting, minimises overspray on non target areas and increases wind resistance. It also ensures that water is applied slowly and evenly, which in turn, eliminates run off without sacrificing landscape health,” said Chris.

According to Paul, the updated sprinklers have a precipitation rate about 25% less than the previous

standard fixed arc nozzles and half that of the variable arc nozzles.

“They also have a lot more options in arcs that are available so that the spray does not exceed very specific areas, such as garden beds,” he said.

The irrigation system at the Parklands is controlled by an IRRInet control system based in the office. It remotely controls and monitors the entire irrigation system via radio links and an internet connection.

This takes into consideration moisture, salinity and temperature of the soil, has input from the weather station regarding forecast rainfall, and will alter operation based on these conditions.

“This means that grounds staff now have the ability to manage, maintain and report on the irrigation infrastructure of the Parklands and the whole irrigation system without even having to step foot outside,” said Paul.

The result is that the gardens are now using water much more efficiently, and irrigation costs are lower.

Article supplied by Toro Australia Pty Ltd.