Pressure sensitive transducers (PSTs) can be used to precisely measure water depth and therefore accurately determine the seepage and evaporation losses from water storages.
The delivery of dissolved mineral fertilisers to the roots of crops in the field using irrigation water is known as ‘fertigation’. The use of fertigation is gaining popularity because of it’s efficiencies in nutrient management, time and labour and potentially a greater control over crop performance.
Evaporation accounts for the biggest water losses in the nation, which means the potential shown from recent evaporation research and development, involving on-farm and major storage trials, should continue to be explored.
The National Centre for Engineering in Agriculture (NCEA) recently undertook seepage and evaporation measurements at water storages for a mixed horticulture farm at Forest Hill in the Lockyer Valley. This is a fact sheet about those measurements.
