These fact sheets contain information that can help irrigators improve water-use efficiency.

Topics covered:

• Cotton
• Dairy
• Drainage
• Farm dams
• Groundwater
• Horticulture
• Irrigation application systems
• Irrigation maintenance issues
• Irrigation management factors
• Irrigation monitoring equipment
• Irrigation scheduling
• Lucerne/Pasture
• Salinity
• Soils
• Water Meters
• Water quality
• Water recycling
• Weather and climate issues

Cotton

• WATERpak: a guide for irrigation management in cotton. This guide has separate factsheets on:
  • Cost of pumping
  • Pump efficiency
  • Soil water monitoring
  • Irrigation scheduling
  • Irrigation water quality
  • Evaluating surface irrigation systems.

Dairy

• Dairy effluent management systems
• Dairybal - a whole of farm nutrient and water mass balance spreadsheet

Drainage

• Deep drainage: a problem or an asset? (PDF, 170 kB)*

Farm dams

• Building a farm dam 
• Excavated tanks and ring tanks (PDF, 137 kB)*
• Farm dam construction (PDF, 73 kB)*
• Gully dams: estimating earthworks and storage volume (PDF, 113 kB)*
• Leaking farm dams 

Groundwater

• Disinfection of water bores (PDF, 39 kB)*
• Drilling for water (PDF, 63 kB)*
• Iron bacteria in water bores (PDF, 52 kB)*
• Using chemicals in water bores (PDF, 37 kB)*
• Water bores: testing yield (PDF, 51 kB)*
• Water bores: troubleshooting (PDF, 37 kB)*

Horticulture

• Queensland crop water use efficiency benchmarks - Water for Profit factsheets
• Bananas - better drainage
• Bananas – methods of irrigation
• Producing vegetables for a market 4. sensible use of irrigation resources
• Understanding the annual growth cycle of citrus (PDF, 326 kB)*
• Water for Profit: what's it all about? (PDF, 326 kB)*
• Watermelons: commercial production

Irrigation application systems

• Basic design requirements for irrigation systems (PDF, 252 kB)*

Microirrigation

• Catch can trials - drip and micro-sprinkler systems (PDF, 321 kB)*
• Measuring flow in microirrigation (PDF, 398 kB)*
• Subsurface drip irrigation: advantages and limitations (PDF, 281 kB)*
• Subsurface drip irrigation: crop management (PDF, 280 kB)*
• Subsurface drip irrigation: installation (PDF, 488 kB)*
• Subsurface drip irrigation: system components (PDF, 518 kB)*
• Subsurface drip irrigation: system design (PDF, 292 kB)*
• Subsurface drip irrigation: system maintenance (PDF 282 kB)*

Centre pivots

• Centre pivot catch can trials (PDF, 388 kB)
• Centre pivot irrigation - application efficiency (PDF, 45 kB)*
• Centre pivot irrigation - distribution uniformity (PDF, 39 kB)*
• Centre pivot irrigation - effluent use (PDF, 37 kB)*
• Centre pivot irrigation - managing wheel tracks (PDF, 43 kB)*
• Centre pivot irrigation - moving towable pivots (PDF, 64 kB)*
• Centre pivot irrigation - pressure regulators (PDF, 43 kB)*
• Centre pivot irrigation - sprinkler packages (PDF, 34 kB)*
• Centre pivot irrigation - system capacity (PDF, 29 kB)*
• Centre pivot irrigation - water quality (PDF, 35 kB)*

Sprinkler irrigation

• Lateral moves and low pressure booms - catch can trials (PDF, 355 kB)*
• Measuring the performance of overhead irrigators (PDF, 173 kB)*
• Solid set and handshift sprinklers - catch can trials (PDF, 326 kB)*
• Effect of rotation angle on travelling gun performance (PDF, 289 kB)*

Surface irrigation

• Measuring the performance of furrow irrigations (PDF, 207 kB)*

Irrigation maintenance issues

• Cavitation in centrifugal pumps (PDF, 74 kB)*
• Acid treatments for micro-irrigation systems (PDF, 547 kB)*
• Chlorination of micro-irrigation systems (PDF, 419 kB)*
• Flushing of micro-irrigation systems (PDF, 309 kB)*
• Effect of water quality on micro-irrigation maintenance (PDF, 413 kB)*
• Filtration options for micro-irrigation systems (PDF, 412 kB)*
• Micro-sprinkler system checks (PDF, 404 kB)*
• Pump efficiency: factors and costs (PDF, 333 kB)*
• Pump troubleshooting: centrifugal pumps (PDF, 74 kB)*
• Pump troubleshooting: river pumps and bore pumps (PDF, 54 kB)*
• Pumping from shallow streams (PDF, 59 kB)*
• Reading engine performance curves (PDF, 479 kB)*
• Selecting an irrigation pump 
• Worn parts help you part with your money 

Irrigation management factors

• Benchmarking water use (PDF, 302 kB)*
• Calculating distribution uniformity (DU) (PDF, 311 kB)*
• Options for managing with limited water (PDF, 251 kB)*
• Shallow observation wells: for better irrigation management (PDF, 87 kB)*

Fertigation

• Centre pivot irrigation - fertigation & chemigation (PDF, 29 kB)*
• Fertigation management (PDF, 408 kB)*
• Centre pivot irrigation - fertigation (PDF, 28 kB)*
• Fertigation compatibility table (PDF, 330 kB)*
• Measuring fertigation system performance (PDF, 363 kB)*
• Methods of fertigation (PDF, 423 kB)*

Irrigation monitoring equipment

• Choosing a soil-water monitoring tool (PDF, 298 kB)*
• Positioning of soil-water monitoring tools (PDF, 334 kB)*
• Soil moisture monitoring device - tube installation (PDF, 300 kB)*
• Soil moisture monitoring tools (PDF, 184 kB)*
• Taking gopher probe readings (PDF, 302 kB)*
• Using conductivity meters in agriculture

Tensiometer

• Installation and placement of tensiometers (PDF, 128 kB)*
• Maintenance and troubleshooting of tensiometers (PDF, 111 kB)*
• Installing tensiometers (PDF, 298 kB)*
• Tensiometers in irrigation (PDF, 302 kB)*
• What is a tensiometer? (PDF, 142 kB)*

Irrigation scheduling

• Common irrigation unit conversions (PDF, 282 kB)*
• Converting readily available water to hours of irrigation: drip systems (PDF, 401 kB)*
• Estimating crop water use based on evaporation measurements (PDF, 279 kB)*
• Estimating how much water should be applied (PDF, 294 kB)*
• Centre pivot irrigation - scheduling (PDF, 32 kB)*
• Handshift and solid set sprinkler irrigation systems - calculating when to irrigate (PDF, 456 kB)*
• The HOWWET? computer program: estimating soil moisture and nitrogen (PDF, 78 kB)*
• The HOWOFTEN? computer program: exploring probabilities from daily rainfall records (PDF, 75 kB)*
• Irrigation scheduling using evaporation data and crop factors (PDF, 136 kB)*
• Irrigation scheduling with minipans (PDF, 224 kB)*
• Irrigation: water balance scheduling
• Travelling boom irrigation systems - calculating when to irrigate (PDF, 476 kB)*
• Tree/vine micro-irrigation systems with overlap of water from emitters along the row (PDF, 501 kB)*
• Tree/vine micro-irrigation systems without overlap of water from emitters along the row (PDF, 550 kB)*
• Weather and climate forecasting (PDF, 161 kB)*
• Weather stations (PDF, 312 kB)*
• What is scheduling? (PDF, 136 kB)*

Lucerne/pasture

• Irrigated pastures for inland Central Queensland

Salinity

• Brymaroo catchment - a salinity case study (PDF, 188 kB)*
• Ensuring an acceptable level of salts in the crop root zone (PDF, 399 kB)*
• Estimating the level of salt in the crop root zone (PDF, 332 kB)*
• Irrigation water quality: salinity & soil structure stability (PDF, 81 kB)*
• Production from salty lands (PDF, 181 kB)*
• Salinity hazard mapping in Qld (PDF, 188 kB)*
• Salinity in Queensland (PDF, 268 kB)*
• Salts in the crop root zone (PDF, 340 kB)*
• Using conductivity meters in agriculture

Soils

Infiltration

• How much water is in my soil? (PDF, 289 kB)*
• How much water can my soils hold? (PDF, 173 kB)*
• Soil compaction in cropping land (PDF, 64 kB)*

Soil Structure

• Cropping soils of Central Queensland
• Managing irrigation sodicity (PDF, 342 kB)*
• Paddock guide to determining soil texture (PDF, 224 kB)*
• Soil acidification (PDF, 63 kB)*
• Soil colour (PDF, 161 kB)*
• Soil components: the building blocks (PDF, 398 kB)*
• Soil management (PDF, 155 kB)*
• Soil pH (PDF, 306 kB)*
• Soil texture (PDF, 425 kB)*
• Soil water and texture (PDF, 392 kB)*
• Measuring and adjusting soil pH (PDF, 386 kB)*
• Understanding soils (PDF, 212 kB)*

Water Meters

• Conducting site assessments for water meter installations (PDF, 60 kB)*
• Emerging water metering technology - dataloggers and telemetry (PDF, 55 kB)*
• Metering water extractions in Queensland (PDF, 71 kB)*
• Selecting a water meter (PDF, 51 kB)*
• Water meter installation process (PDF, 49 kB)*

Water quality

• Blue-green algae
• Interpreting water analysis for crop and pasture
• Managing blue-green algae blooms in farm dams
• Sampling your water supply (PDF, 44 kB)*
• Solving the scale problem in pipes (PDF, 37 kB)*

Water recycling

• Best practice waste disposal to minimise organic phosphorus mobilisation to water resources
• Queensland Water Recycling Strategy
• Water recycling

Weather and climate issues

• Cropping options for dry seasons
• The hydrologic cycle (PDF, 150 kB)*

 

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