Our agricultural division has installed a state-of-the-art automated irrigation system on one of our farms, in a joint project with Sugar Research Australia (SRA).
Wilmar Sugar's Cane Products Leadership team visited the cane farm at Stockham Road, near Ayr, recently to see firsthand how the new system works.
The Burdekin Irrigation Project supports a major technological innovation that allows for 130ha of our Burdekin farming operations to be irrigated automatically.
The main control system, located at our Mona Park office, includes a WISA computer control unit that connects via radio frequencies to gate valves and sensors up to 12km away.
The key in-paddock technology are solar/battery actuator gate valve controllers. There is also a range of sensors that gather climate data, measure soil moisture levels and indicate when an irrigation set is complete. This information helps automate a range of functions that would typically be completed throughout a 24-hour period, in person, by a farmhand.
With this technology, the changing over of irrigation sets can occur automatically throughout the night, without someone having to go down to the farm to open and close valves. The farmhand can control the irrigation schedules, and get data from the sensors, through a cloud-based system on a smartphone or tablet without leaving home.
Farms Group Manager Darren Oliveri worked closely with Terry Granshaw from SRA, and Steve Attard and Cherrie Stockham from AgriTech Solutions, on the design and implementation of the new system.
SRA has set up a demonstration site on our farm which aims to create a greater understanding of how technology such as this can benefit the greater sugar industry through improved irrigation efficiencies, reduced run-off and reduced losses to groundwater.
Our leadership team gained a deeper understanding of the importance and benefits of this technology during their on-farm visit, and we hope to expand its use over a further 500ha in the next few years.
Our agricultural division operates more than 7,000 hectares of cane land across our milling regions, producing up to 550,000 tonnes of sugarcane annually for our mills. This makes our cane farming operation one of the largest in Australia.
The Burdekin Irrigation Project is funded by the partnership between the Australian Government’s Reef Trust and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation with collaboration between Sugar Research Australia, Farmacist, AgriTech Solutions, Burdekin Productivity Services, Burdekin Bowen Integrated Floodplain Management Advisory Committee, James Cook University, the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fishers and NQ Dry Tropics.
