New BOM service provides data for water-sensitive decision making

from September 2022 Australia & New Zealand Olivegrower & Processor

EVOO: healthy AND sustainable

The evapotranspiration map provides the rate of water loss from a region via both transpiration and evaporation, assisting farmers to more efficiently manage the available water for their crop. You can find out how much rain fell the previous day’s rainfall data, access historical rainfall data and see predictions for future precipitation.

Root zone moisture data is a useful aid for irrigation scheduling.

The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has developed the interactive Australian Water Outlook, a new online service that delivers historical information, seasonal outlooks, and future projections for water across Australia.

The service expands on the Bureau's public hydrological offerings, building on and replacing the historical information available through the Australian Landscape Water Balance, which is soon to be decommissioned.

At a wider community level, the Australian Water Outlook enables improved water management and planning for potential hazards such as floods, drought, and fire.

For farmers and farm managers, it provides access to the big picture of conditions three months ahead, drawing on seasonal outlooks for rainfall, run-off, potential evapotranspiration and more, to help with planning and decision making.

Comprehensive information source

The Australian Water Outlook provides comprehensive, Australia-wide information on key landscape water balance components including soil moisture, runoff, evapotranspiration and precipitation. The website provides access to information over different timescales: • historical information - daily gridded outputs of precipitation, soil moisture, run-off and deep drainage from 1911 to the previous day; • seasonal forecasts - for one to three months ahead, with monthly outputs available for root-zone soil moisture, evapotranspiration and run-off, updated monthly; • hydrological projections - changes in precipitation, soil moisture and runoff for a series of aggregated periods to the end of the century.

All information is publicly available on the AWO website, providing 24/7 access to: • comprehensive, Australia-wide, nationally-consistent hydroclimate information in one place; • options to aggregate data (by river region, state or national); • information at multiple timescales (past, present, and future), with forecasts and projections that can be related to historical data; • detailed documentation and verification of outputs; • multiple channels for accessing data, including downloads from the AWO website and the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) Data Collection, and connections to web service URLs via the Australian Water Data Service (AWDS);

all on a mobile-friendly, web-based user interface.

Bookmark your search

You can also save any map view on the AWO website for future reference by simply copying the URL from the browser. The URL serves as a bookmark for the map extent and location, any variables selected, timestep and date.

And while maps are not available as downloadable image files, you can capture a view using screen shot tools and save or print.

Where to find it

Find out more and access the new Australian Water Outlook service at https:// awo.bom.gov.au.

Beating biennial bearing: we need your input!

It’s one of the biggest issues our industry faces, so the AOA is taking an in-depth look at the effect of various practices and circumstances on biennial bearing.

One significant area of interest is the effect of fruit left on trees, or harvested very late, on the following year’s flowering, and therefore crop level. As a basis for research we’re planning to undertake, we need to gather a picture of the level of flowering on trees across Australia for this year’s crop, compared to previous years’ yields.

Grower experience is undoubtedly the best place to start, so we’re hoping all our Olivegrower readers will help by sending us details of what’s happened in your grove. We’re particularly keen to hear from those who didn’t harvest in 2021, or only removed part of their crop, and how it may have influenced this year’s production.

Please let us know: • Did you have a (comparatively) large, medium or small harvest in 2021? • Was any fruit not harvested in your grove/s? • Did you finish harvesting late in the season? • Was flowering for the 2022 crop the same, better or worse than the previous year, or compared to your usual experience? • What varieties do you have, and did the above factors differ between them for the 2021 and 2022 harvests?

We’d also be very keen to hear about any practices which you’ve used to reduce or eliminate biennial bearing in your grove.

Please email your information to AOA Administration Manager Liz Bouzoudis at admin@australianolives.com.au.

Many thanks in advance for your input!