Water available with no waiting

As part of the irrigation upgrade, Daryl Riley had a leaky channel filled in and now uses it as a laneway.

Irrigation upgrades on Daryl Riley’s Cohuna dairy farm were finished in the nick of time— his perennial pastures were starting to dry out.

Mr Riley, who milks 150 cows, said since the manual pipe and riser irrigation system was completed about six weeks ago, it had saved him time and labour.

‘‘ Now I have more days off water than before,’’ he said.

Mr Riley has had the farm for 13 years ‘‘. . . 10 of which have been drought years’’.

About 69 ha of the 77 ha farm is under irrigation.

The irrigation system on 61 ha was upgraded with a G&M Poly Irrigation pipe and riser system.

About 10 ha remains under flood irrigation.

Mr Riley said Northern Victoria Irrigation Renewal Project funding came to about 60 per cent of the total upgrade’s cost.

Besides securing funding, the other major challenge was getting approval to run pipe under a dirt road.

‘‘ It took three years to get approval,’’ he said.

The dairy farmer is still learning which outlets to open and how to get into the best watering rotation.

‘‘ I can do more watering in 15 hours than I previously did in 36 hours,’’ he said.

Mr Riley said he watered about 12 ha at a time, depending on the paddock.

‘‘ The beauty of it is now when I want turn it on, water is available for the bays I want to irrigate because I only have one channel that has a motorised pump and I no longer have to wait for a channel to fill.

‘‘ I can go down on the motorbike, turn off of one riser and turn on the next.’’

He said it previously took between six and eight hours for the channels to fill.

Another advantage of the upgrade was no longer needing to use the leaky channel, which Mr Riley had tried to have repaired multiple times.

He said with the new system, he could order between 3 Ml and 16 Ml a day, whereas his old system had one wheel that could use 8 Ml and others that could use 4 Ml and 6 Ml.

‘‘ The water goes on and goes off faster.

‘‘ We can get cows back on the paddock 12 hours quicker than I used to.’’

Mr Riley said his watering rotation was definitely quicker, but it was too early to tell its impact on pasture growth.

‘‘ It will probably take a year to analyse what’s gone on and how pastures have improved.’’