Whether you have a small farm, orchard or vineyard or you’re looking to implement a large-scale irrigation scheme, we have the experience and expertise to get your land growing.

We also work closely with local and regional authorities to prepare practical and workable irrigation guidelines – so we understand exactly what you need to do to make the most of your water allocation.

Irrigation management is an integrated process to ensure water for agriculture is used efficiently and effectively at all times.

As irrigation water demand increases, farmers and growers face the challenge of ensuring that their irrigation systems are profitable, sustainable and practical. Through proven modelling approaches and practical monitoring strategies, we can work with you to develop an appropriate soil moisture monitoring regime that maximises production and water use efficiency.

Our comprehensive irrigation management service helps you:

• Keep accurate soil moisture data to demonstrate your water requirements and comply with consents

• Maximise productivity

• Optimise water use — now and into the future

These provide the grower with continuous, accurate and representative soil moisture measurements in real time to enable optimal irrigation scheduling based on crop water usage, soil moisture, soil temperature and climate monitoring.

Continuous soil moisture data is key — this will enable you to observe the effects of irrigation and rainfall events, hot dry days, etc. and to proactively manage your irrigation.

In order to achieve that ‘accurate and representative data’ above there are a few key factors to consider:

• Sensor selection — what type of soil moisture sensor is most suitable for the application?

• Site selection — selection of a site representative of the area to be irrigated is vital

• Number of sensors — closely related to site selection, how many soil types, what area does each account for, how many irrigators etc.?

• Installation — How should the sensors be installed?

When it comes to soil moisture sensors it is definitely not a case of one size fits all. All sensors are different and have different attributes, strengths, and weaknesses. Crop type, rooting depth, soil type, and many other parameters determine which sensor is the best fit for the application. Sometimes regularly updating a simple soil water balance may be the most appropriate option but it does involve working with more data.

Selection of a representative site is crucial as soil moisture can vary significantly over very small distances. This requires some work (to determine topographical information, soil type and characteristics etc.) and a site visit with the farmer to ensure representative and appropriate sites are selected and avoid any old tracks, tree lines, water races.

More is not necessarily better when it comes to soil moisture sensors. A few sensors in representative locations that provide the ‘representative data’ mentioned above is the ideal. Ideally there should be at least one sensor in each soil type (provided it makes up a significant percentage of the total area) and under every irrigator.

Wherever possible soil moisture sensors should be installed in undisturbed soil to reduce or eliminate any settling time.

An irrigation strategy based on robust soil moisture measurements can provide significant operational and environmental benefits, especially around the reduction of nutrient leaching of nutrients.

You can access your soil moisture measurements using a computer or smartphone via our myIrrigation service and our irrigation management experts are always available to provide advice.

Irrigation scheme owners and operators face the challenge of getting the fundamentals right in a resource management environment that grows more complex every year. Managing this challenge requires expert input from a wide range of specialists, including agricultural, technical, legal, commercial and environmental experts.

We provide independent advice on a range of existing irrigation scheme aspects, including:

• Assessing irrigation demand to refine or expand the irrigated area

• Weighing the pros and cons of different options, such as piping open race systems or converting border-dyke irrigation to spray irrigation

• Balancing the scheme’s supply, demand and storage requirements to achieve reliability

  We also provide advice and support for the development of new irrigation schemes, including:

  • Preparing proposals for funding support

  • Conducting pre-feasibility and full-feasibility studies

  • Delivering an independent peer review of scheme investigations and proposals

  • Designing the scheme, managing the tendering process and obtaining resource consents