With the ever-increasing pressure on the agricultural industry from environmental groups and the Government to mitigate its often exaggerated effect on the environment, it is essential that farmers continue to work towards limiting nutrient leaching from their farms.
Farmers with irrigation receive more criticism as this is seen as the most serious of evils, but irrigation when used with precision can be beneficial to the environment — good pasture or crop growth uses up available water and nutrients and limits runoff in times of drought.
Using precision technology on irrigators not only provides these benefits but also greatly reduces the amount of water used to grow good pasture or crops. Irrigators using Growsmart Precision VRI experience water savings of between 25per cent and 30per cent, reducing electricity and giving the other benefits of being able to turn off irrigation over and around pivot ruts, tracks, water troughs, gateways, drains and any boggy areas.
Growsmart Precision VRI has been supplying these benefits for 10 years now with the original systems still working perfectly and producing world record crops for their farmers with technology that leads in this area and is continually updated to provide the farmer with ease of use and the required reporting for the environmental regulators.
A new innovation enables farmers to create irrigation plans to apply effluent, fertigation and/or chemigation to specific areas under an irrigator. This lets farmers target resources to maximise yields, ensuring efficient use of inputs such as water and nutrients, yet still preventing leaching and run-off.
