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Machinery from Case IH, a brand of CNH, is being used to develop new methods of water storage, management and application. With water being a precious resource for Australian agriculture, greater efficiency is being sought by farmers across the sector.
Just outside St George, in south-west Queensland, on the mixed farming property, ‘Wagaby’, Ian Todd is investing in a different water application system, which will lead to savings in terms of labour and machinery outputs, and even in the amount of water required for his 1200ha of irrigated paddocks.
Ian is in the process of converting these paddocks from a syphon to bankless, or surface, irrigation system, a practice being used by more farmers across Queensland and NSW properties.
‘Wagaby’ staff member Chris Strickfuss is the man charged with converting the paddocks, laser-levelling these areas, and creating banks that divide the paddocks into bays of about 20ha each.
Chris gets the job done with a Case IH Steiger® tractor and a Horwood Bagshaw Grader Scraper, and in the past month, a new Case IH Steiger 555 and 14ft Horwood Bagshaw Grader Scraper have joined the ‘Wagaby’ machinery fleet.
Ian has always relied on Case IH tractors and sprayers, and Horwood Bagshaw implements, which he also used to sell when he had the Horwood Bagshaw (previously Alfarm) and Case IH machinery dealership in St George for 32 years.
“Irrigation labour is reduced significantly, and the new layouts are much more friendly for large farming equipment. It’s probably 20 to 30 per cent more efficient on the number of hectares you get through each day. Depending on the design, there’s also water savings of up to 15 per cent, and no yield penalty,” said Glenn Lyons, who runs GL Water Services in St George.
The team at ‘Wagaby’ has planted cotton into their irrigated paddocks in the past month, and the harvesting of the wheat has begun, using the property’s own Case IH Axial-Flow 7240 and another 7240 belonging to a local contractor.
