Irrigation fact sheets
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
- 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 effluent management systems
- Dairybal - a whole of farm nutrient and water mass balance spreadsheet
- Deep drainage: a problem or an asset? (PDF, 148K)*
- Building a farm dam
- Excavated tanks and ring tanks (PDF, 258K)*
- Farm dam construction (PDF, 160K)*
- Gully dams: estimating earthworks and storage volume (PDF, 235K)*
- Leaking farm dams
- Disinfection of water bores (PDF, 100K)*
- Drilling for water (PDF, 124K)*
- Iron bacteria in water bores (PDF, 108K)*
- Using chemicals in water bores (PDF, 100K)*
- Water bores: testing yield (PDF, 124K)*
- Water bores: troubleshooting (PDF, 99K)*
- 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)*
- Water for Profit: what's it all about? (PDF)*
- Watermelons: commercial production
Irrigation application systems
Microirrigation
- Catch can trials - drip and micro-sprinkler systems (PDF)*
- Measuring flow in microirrigation (PDF)*
- Subsurface drip irrigation: advantages and limitations (PDF, 281K)*
- Subsurface drip irrigation: crop management (PDF, 279K)*
- Subsurface drip irrigation: installation (PDF, 487K)*
- Subsurface drip irrigation: system components (PDF, 518K)*
- Subsurface drip irrigation: system design (PDF, 292K)*
- Subsurface drip irrigation: system maintenance (PDF, 282K)*
Centre pivots
- Centre pivot catch can trials
- Centre pivot irrigation - application efficiency (PDF, 44K)*
- Centre pivot irrigation - distribution uniformity (PDF, 39K)*
- Centre pivot irrigation - effluent use (PDF, 37K)*
- Centre pivot irrigation - managing wheel tracks (PDF, 42K)*
- Centre pivot irrigation - moving towable pivots (PDF, 63K)*
- Centre pivot irrigation - pressure regulators (PDF, 43K)*
- Centre pivot irrigation - sprinkler packages (PDF, 33K)*
- Centre pivot irrigation - system capacity (PDF, 29K)*
- Centre pivot irrigation - water quality (PDF, 35K)*
Sprinkler irrigation
- Lateral moves and low pressure booms - catch can trials
- Measuring the performance of overhead irrigators (PDF, 173K)*
- Solid set and handshift sprinklers - catch can trials
- Effect of rotation angle on travelling gun performance (PDF)*
Surface irrigation
- Measuring the performance of furrow irrigations (PDF, 207K)*
- Cavitation in centrifugal pumps (PDF, 90K)*
- Acid treatments for micro-irrigation systems (PDF)*
- Chlorination of micro-irrigation systems (PDF)*
- Flushing of micro-irrigation systems (PDF)*
- Effect of water quality on micro-irrigation maintenance
- Filtration options for micro-irrigation systems (PDF)*
- Micro-sprinkler system checks
- Pump efficiency: factors and costs (PDF)*
- Pump troubleshooting: centrifugal pumps (PDF, 161K)*
- Pump troubleshooting: river pumps and bore pumps (PDF, 124K)*
- Pumping from shallow streams (PDF, 143K)*
- Reading engine performance curves (PDF)*
- Selecting an irrigation pump
- Worn parts help you part with your money
- Benchmarking water use (PDF)*
- Calculating distribution uniformity (DU) (PDF)*
- Options for managing with limited water
- Shallow observation wells: for better irrigation management (PDF, 113K)*
Fertigation
- Centre pivot irrigation - fertigation & chemigation (PDF, 29K)*
- Fertigation management
- Centre pivot irrigation - fertigation (PDF, 28K)*
- Fertigation compatibility table (PDF)*
- Measuring fertigation system performance
- Methods of fertigation
Irrigation monitoring equipment
- Choosing a soil-water monitoring tool (PDF)*
- Positioning of soil-water monitoring tools (PDF)*
- Soil moisture monitoring device - tube installation (PDF)*
- Soil moisture monitoring tools (PDF, 183K)*
- Taking gopher probe readings (PDF)*
- Using conductivity meters in agriculture
Tensiometer
- Installation and placement of tensiometers (PDF, 128K)*
- Maintenance and troubleshooting of tensiometers (PDF, 110K)*
- Installing tensiometers (PDF)*
- Tensiometers in irrigation (PDF)*
- What is a tensiometer? (PDF, 142K)*
- Common irrigation unit conversions
- Converting readily available water to hours of irrigation: drip systems (PDF)*
- Estimating crop water use based on evaporation measurements (PDF)*
- Estimating how much water should be applied (PDF)*
- Centre pivot irrigation - scheduling (PDF, 32K)*
- Handshift and solid set sprinkler irrigation systems - calculating when to irrigate (PDF)*
- The HOWWET? computer program: estimating soil moisture and nitrogen (PDF, 152K)*
- The HOWOFTEN? computer program: exploring probabilities from daily rainfall records (PDF, 171K)*
- Irrigation scheduling using evaporation data and crop factors (PDF, 136K)*
- Irrigation scheduling with minipans (PDF, 224K)*
- Irrigation: water balance scheduling
- Travelling boom irrigation systems - calculating when to irrigate (PDF)*
- Tree/vine micro-irrigation systems with overlap of water from emitters along the row (PDF)*
- Tree/vine micro-irrigation systems without overlap of water from emitters along the row (PDF)*
- Weather and climate forecasting (PDF, 161K)*
- Weather stations (PDF)*
- What is scheduling? (PDF, 136K)*
Lucerne/pasture
- Brymaroo catchment - a salinity case study (PDF, 174K)*
- Ensuring an acceptable level of salts in the crop root zone
- Estimating the level of salt in the crop root zone (PDF)*
- Irrigation water quality: salinity & soil structure stability (PDF, 202K)*
- Production from salty lands (PDF, 176K)*
- Salinity hazard mapping in Qld (PDF, 186K)*
- Salinity in Queensland (PDF, 234K)*
- Salts in the crop root zone
- Using conductivity meters in agriculture
Infiltration
- How much water is in my soil?
- How much water can my soils hold? (PDF, 172K)*
- Soil compaction in cropping land (PDF, 128K)*
Soil Structure
- Cropping soils of Central Queensland
- Managing irrigation sodicity (PDF)*
- Paddock guide to determining soil texture (PDF, 113K)*
- Soil acidification (PDF, 139K)*
- Soil colour (PDF, 128K)*
- Soil components: the building blocks (PDF)*
- Soil management (PDF, 124K)*
- Soil pH (PDF)*
- Soil texture (PDF)*
- Soil water and texture (PDF)*
- Measuring and adjusting soil pH
- Understanding soils (PDF, 212K)*
- Conducting site assessments for water meter installations (PDF, 125K)*
- Emerging water metering technology - dataloggers and telemetry (PDF, 136K)*
- Metering water extractions in Queensland (PDF, 148K)*
- Selecting a water meter (PDF, 138K)*
- Water meter installation process (PDF, 161K)*
- Blue-green algae (PDF, 127K)*
- Interpreting water analysis for crop and pasture
- Managing blue-green algae blooms in farm dams (PDF, 148K)*
- Sampling your water supply (PDF, 105K)*
- Solving the scale problem in pipes (PDF, 99K)*
- Best practice waste disposal to minimise organic phosphorus mobilisation to water resources
- Queensland Water Recycling Strategy
- Water recycling
- Cropping options for dry seasons
- The hydrologic cycle (PDF, 273K)*
If you have any problems accessing these pdfs please contact RWUE Initiative.
* Requires Acrobat Reader
Last updated: 07 May 2009