Resources
- Australian Cotton Cooperative Research CentreThis website has a substantial resource and information database regarding sustainable management, growth and development of cotton.
- WATERpakWATERpak, developed by the Australian Cotton CRC provides technical information and practical advice to help improve irrigation practices, minimise environmental impacts and increase farm profits from irrigated cotton crops.
- CottonLOGICCSIRO has developed CottonLOGIC, a suite of decision tools, to help cotton growers achieve Best Management Practice. It helps growers and advisers manage crops efficiently for optimum yields and quality, and provides easy access to latest research.
- HydroLOGICHydroLOGIC is a software package developed by CSIRO and the Australian Cotton Cooperative Research Centre.
The primary aim of HydroLOGIC is to assist in the effective and timely application of irrigations for furrow irrigated cotton crops. It is able to provide information to help growers assess the consequences of different irrigation strategies on crop growth, yield and water use.
To use HydroLOGIC cotton growers collect data from their cotton crops including:
HydroLOGIC can simulate the most likely outcome, and report on yield and overall water use with different management strategies. HydroLOGIC provides growers with simple information regarding how frequently they should be irrigating. Growers using HydroLOGIC may be able to reduce their water use through the fine-tuning of their water management allowing them to irrigate to fulfil the exact water requirements of the crop without applying water unnecessarily.
To use HydroLOGIC cotton growers collect data from their cotton crops including:
- Soil moisture deficit - a measurement of the difference between total soil moisture available to the crop and the current soil moisture status (obtained by using any existing calibrated soil moisture monitoring equipment);
- Fruit load - a measurement of the number of fruiting structures (squares and bolls) on a crop; and
- Leaf area index - a simple estimate of the amount of leaf area present on the crop that affects the amount of soil evaporation and crop transpiration.
HydroLOGIC can simulate the most likely outcome, and report on yield and overall water use with different management strategies. HydroLOGIC provides growers with simple information regarding how frequently they should be irrigating. Growers using HydroLOGIC may be able to reduce their water use through the fine-tuning of their water management allowing them to irrigate to fulfil the exact water requirements of the crop without applying water unnecessarily.
- National Program for Sustainable Irrigation – Knowledge BaseThe Australian National Program for Sustainable Irrigation focuses research on the development and adoption of sustainable irrigation practices in Australian agriculture.
The Program aims to address critical emerging environmental management issues, while generating long-term economic and social benefits that ensure irrigation has a viable future. In the Knowledge Base ten years of irrigation research and development has been revisited and reviewed to identify lessons for irrigation sustainability.
- SWAGMAN Farm® Modeling SystemSWAGMAN Farm® modeling system is a computer modeling system developed by scientists at CSIRO Land and Water in Griffith to help determine cost-effective options to achieve farm scale water and salt balance within irrigation areas.
The model takes into account distribution of soils within the farm, potential landuses, crop evaporative requirements, current irrigation practices, leaching requirement, annual rainfall, rainfall runoff, leakage to deeper aquifers, depth to watertable, capillary upflow from shallow watertable, salt concentration of irrigation water, groundwater, and rainwater, and the economic returns from potential landuses.
The model can be used to:
The model can be used to:
- provide farmers with a method to simulate and assess various farm cropping scenarios in terms of economic return and environmental effects;
- determine environmentally optimal irrigation intensity; and
- encourage water use efficiency through water and salinity auditing in an integrated model.
- Irrigation Codes and StandardsThe Irrigation Association of Australia web site provides a listing of relevant Australian, New Zealand and International irrigation standards.
- NSW Agriculture Irrigation and Waterwise Web ResourcesNSW Department of Primary Industries water and irrigation information.
- Queensland Water Use Efficiency Initiative DatabaseThis database contains references to journal articles, conference papers, reports and book chapters on irrigation and water use efficiency issues covering Australian research published from 1995 onwards.
- Queensland DNRM, Rural Water Use Efficiency InitiativeThis initiative is a partnership between industry and government to improve the use and management of available irrigation water, thereby improving the competitiveness, profitability, and environmental sustainability of Queensland's rural industries.
- Deltapine AustraliaThis site provides a list of recommended cotton varieties for each region in Australia and provides links to short term and long term weather forecasts.
- Advanced Environmental SystemsThis website lists and describes different soil monitoring devices.
- Water$AVr™ A non-toxic powder that can be applied to reservoirs or irrigation canals and ditches to prevent surface evaporation. WaterSavr™ claims to deliver significant reductions of free water surface evaporation, with up to 50% evaporation mitigation.
- E-vapCap® This system of evaporation control is based around a floating cover made from light-impervious polyethylene sheeting that is environmentally benign and will stop evaporation from large water storages.
- Weather stationsThere's a wide range of suppliers and distributors in Australia. Automatic Weather station start from approximately $5,000. There's a range of factors to consider apart from cost when purchasing an AWS.
- Automatic Weather Stations for agricultural and other applicationsThis Bureau of Meteorology leaflet aims to assist members of the agricultural community and other groups interested in environmental monitoring in the purchase and operation of an AWS.
- Aquator Automated Irrigation for Flood IrrigationAutomated Water Management Australia (AWMA) has developed and produced the 2003 Savewater Award recipient Aquator automated irrigation system for flood irrigators.
This is the first time that a personal computer and radio telemetry has been combined to provide an irrigation management system that effectively replaces the imprecision of manual irrigation pactices. It can generate water savings of up to 40 percent.
The Aquator system is a comprehensive S.C.A.D.A. (supervisory control and data acquisition) program designed specifically for irrigators. Aquator allows both monitoring and controlling of all irrigation functions from a computer. Radio signals are sent from the computer out to an individual solar-powered control module in the paddock. These farm modules can be used for opening and closing bay outlets, operating channel stops, controlling & both electric and diesel pumps etc., opening the wheel door as well as monitoring water levels, flows through the wheel and soil moisture.
The Aquator system is a comprehensive S.C.A.D.A. (supervisory control and data acquisition) program designed specifically for irrigators. Aquator allows both monitoring and controlling of all irrigation functions from a computer. Radio signals are sent from the computer out to an individual solar-powered control module in the paddock. These farm modules can be used for opening and closing bay outlets, operating channel stops, controlling & both electric and diesel pumps etc., opening the wheel door as well as monitoring water levels, flows through the wheel and soil moisture.