Australian Plan to Stop Flood Irrigation

Wines & Vines, Dec, 2000

The Australian wine and grape industries are set to put in place a AU$3.6 million three-year research project to eliminate the potentially disastrous practice of flood irrigation.

According to a report in The Australian, a Sydney newspaper, the plan, overseen by the Co-operative Research Centre for Viticulture, (CRCV) aims to increase water efficiency among grape growers in irrigated regions by 5% to reduce the industry's contribution to salinity problems.

Growers in the Sunraysia, Riverland and MIA districts have been using flood irrigation for more than a century, building banks around their vineyards and sporadically allowing water to flood the vine roots and soil.

But CRCV's Jim Hardie said the practice not only exposed farmers to heavy water losses through evaporation but significantly increased the risk of salination by raising the water table.

While most within the industry now understood the benefits of water-efficient irrigation, there was still a band of growers who continued primitive practices.

"We need to know who is still doing it and what their motivation is," Dr. Hardie said. "It may be that group of growers simply don't have the money to change. It might have something to do with the distribution system and how they obtain their water, and if that's the case, we may need to put pressure to bear."

With many parts of Australia still reliant on open-channel water delivery as opposed to the more efficient closed, pressurized pipe system, growers did not always have enough control over their water supply to introduce new irrigation measures.

Riverland grape grower and South Australian Farmers Federation president Michael Hindsworth said given the choice, most growers would switch to more efficient irrigation systems. "If people have the money to change, they will because flood and furrow irrigating is bloody hard work," he said.