Automated cloud-based irrigation for centre pivot irrigated cotton and dairy pasture

Variable-rate irrigation technology typically reports yield improvements and water savings of up to 20%. This is through reduced under- and over-watering within spatially variably fields. However, these have relatively low uptake in industry because of upfront cost and lack of decision support in determining irrigation prescription maps. NCEA has developed an automated irrigation control system 'VARIwise' that develops irrigation prescription maps from: real-time soil and weather sensors; infield camera imagery; and adaptive control strategy. This control system is transferrable across different crop types, weather profiles and irrigation systems. This presentation presents an overview of the trials conducted in 2016/17 for the cotton and dairy pasture industries. A centre pivot in Yargullen (QLD) irrigating cotton, and centre pivots in Burnie and Montana (TAS) irrigating dairy pasture have been instrumented with variable-rate technology and sensors. Weather stations, soil moisture and irrigation machine-mounted cameras for plant growth tracking were installed. Image analysis algorithms were developed to detect cotton flowering and fruiting and perennial ryegrass height, density and colour. Adaptive control strategies automatically analyse the incoming data and develop an irrigation prescription map. This map is then automatically and remotely transferred to the variable-rate control panel. For the 2017/18 season, the sensor data pre-processing, image analysis algorithms, adaptive control algorithms, and irrigation prescription map development procedures have been transferred to execute on a server. This presentation will also discuss the implementation of these algorithms for automated analysis across the multiple sites as data inputs are received.