While Coal Seam Gas (CSG) extraction undoubtedly sparks heated debates in many facets of agriculture, the connection between CSG water and efficient water use in irrigation systems is turning the tide for the modern day farmer.
Ashley Geldard, Cullingral, Miles, transformed 630 hectares of his 750 hectares of dryland farming to a centre pivot irrigation system using CSG water and said modern technology was the icing on the cake.
“I can basically run the whole system from my smartphone via telemetry from anywhere with internet service- this irrigation farm could quite easily be run by one person,” he said.
“We brought urea in and developed a system where we can put fertiliser in at our pump station and fertilise all the cultivation from one central location.
“The pivots are programmable- I’ll tell them to speed up or slow down at given points and then I might ask them to switch fertiliser on at 182 degrees and they’ll do that automatically.”
Technology’s assistance has lightened the load as far as labour costs go, however Mr Geldard said there were certain stresses associated with his decision to take in CSG water.
“My biggest fears were around water quality and the availability of the water itself but Origin got around that by contracting that all water taken by producers must meet or exceed Australian and New Zealand guidelines for fresh and marine water (ANZECC) standards,” he said.
“To date they’ve been easily exceeding standards and this water is probably the highest quality irrigation water in the world and also the most expensive.
“The riskiest part for me was that I’d undertaken a large irrigation development based on no guarantee of the volume of water or how long it would be available, but given the amount of money and infrastructure these companies have and the fact the water has to come out gives us some confidence.”
Mr Geldard was harvesting 320 hectares of irrigated cotton and said there was no doubt his productivity had skyrocketed with a constant water supply.
“We were averaging about 2.6 bales/hectare on dryland and this year we’ll average somewhere between 11 and 12.5 bales/hectare,” he said.
“This is one of the driest summers we’ve had and yet it’s our most productive season ever off this land and it’s exciting to have that control.”
The Cullingral CSG water allocation allows Mr Geldard to irrigate a maximum of 630 hectares, however a ring tank was built as a buffer to contain water when irrigation wasn’t necessary.
Mr Geldard took his first CSG water in 2013 and said efficient water use was very important in his decision to accept CSG water, not only from a moral point of view but also a practical on-farm perspective.
“We’ve done a fairly significant research and development project in utilising our centre pivots to also irrigate areas outside their reach- we’re still farming in rectangular fields but we flood irrigate in the corners from the end of the pivots,” he said.
“Water use efficiency figures with our cotton at the moment are at about 1.5 bales/hectare compared to industry best practice guidelines at 1.3 bales/hectare, so it’s exciting to see those results coming out of our new system.”
Mr Geldard said manure from Stanbroke feedlot was used entirely as fertiliser to manage phosphorous and potassium, with nitrogen levels “fine tuned” in-crop through irrigation.
“So far results from the feedlot manure have been really positive and with Stanbroke right next door it’s a bit of a feel good thing- they buy most of our grain and we buy the manure back,” he said.
“When you put nitrogen on pre-plant you lose a certain amount to deep drainage so by the time the crop needs it its likely diminished.
“Adding nitrogen as the crop needs it is more efficient and being later in the crop’s life you can push straw thickness and improve standability.”
Mr Geldard said his cotton crop would go straight back to chickpeas while mungbeans planted in late January and due for harvest at the end of the week would hopefully yield about two tonnes/hectare.
“Mungbeans are a good fit because they don’t use much moisture and we can plant them later so we’re not watering them heavily until after the cotton is past its peak water use,” he said.
“This paddock (pictured) has been watered twice and it’ll be a handy crop.”
Mr Geldard said the coming season’s chickpea crop would be his first grown under irrigation due to the risk of waterlogging.
“I have an obligation to be using water consistently throughout the year and in a wet winter scenario the last thing you want to be doing is putting more water on chickpeas but because we’ve had such a dry summer and my storage is empty we could get a wet winter and still have room,” he said.
“With wheat prices so miserable and chickpeas so good they’re an obvious alternative.”
Mr Geldard’s commitment to efficient water use is showing obvious results in productivity and while the longevity of CSG water may be anyone’s guess, there is no doubt the benefits of such significant yield increases outweigh any question of best practice.