Water saving through smarter irrigation in Australian dairy farming: Use of intelligent irrigation controller and wireless sensor network

Abstract

Precise control of irrigation water for improving water use is critical for sustainability of irrigated farming systems under Australia's present water crisis scenario. Border-check irrigation is the predominant method of irrigating dairy pastures, which is the single largest water user in the country. As a classical practice of border-check irrigation, cut-off of the water supply is determined when the waterfront reaches two third of the irrigation bay. In these practices, irrigation requirement may not have fulfilled or there may be increased deep percolation and/or water logging, which lead to lower economic water and pasture productivity. In order to address these issues, a sensor based ..