MACQUARIE Valley irrigator, Rob Tuck, has cut water use by as much as 40 per cent on fields where he has introduced minimum tillage conservation farming practices on his farms near Narromine.
By retaining stubbles and storing higher levels of soil moisture, he has virtually eliminated the need to pre-irrigate and water-up cotton crops.
Where his conventionally-cultivated furrow-irrigated cotton crops usually require eight to 8.5 megalitres of irrigation water a hectare in a growing season, last summer’s cotton grown on his minimum till, two-metre bed system used only 5.2Ml/ha.
On his linear-move irrigation blocks where all crops are grown on the flat, the savings were even greater, with only four megalitres a hectare of water required to produce the crop.
Mr Tuck has been so impressed with the success of minimum tillage under linear irrigation, he plans to make all his furrow layouts linear.
He said the capacity to store and use more rain water under minimum tillage had allowed him to grow more crop for the water available.
For full story see this week's The Land.
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