This information package was commissioned by the National Program for Sustainable Irrigation, a program of Land & Water Australia, the Cooperative Research Centre for Viticulture and the Grape and Wine Research and Development Corporation to provide an overview of the background, current developments and future prospects for implementing regulated deficit irrigation and partial rootzone drying

Weeds cost the Australian economy millions of dollars each year in lost production, eradication, containment and management, however there has been very little effort placed on assessing or valuing the ecological impact of these weeds.

Australian river systems are threatened by the severe effects of drought, bank erosion, sedimentation, pollutant inputs, urban development, and invasions by exotic aquatic plant species. This publication is one of a suite of 13 produced as part of a folder showcasing research from the Defeating the Weed Menace Research and Development program.

Annual report for Land and water for 2002 - 2003

Buffel grass (Cenchrus ciliaris) is a valuable introduced species for pastoral production but its invasion into arid and semi-arid rangelands represents a key threatening process for conservation values.

The Water Allocation Decision Support System (WAdss) was developed to allow the social,

economic and environmental trade-offs of water allocation, access and pricing decisions to be

assessed concurrently across both groundwater and surface water systems. This development

was funded by the CRDC. Systems exist for the Namoi and Gwydir Valleys. Workshops

have previously been run with regional State Government Agency staff, CMAs and irrigators

on these systems. Considerable interest was expressed during these workshops in the

approach however since that time little progress has been made on ensuring adoption of these

systems in these Valleys. One block to further adoption is acceptance of the approach by

State Government. At least two factors have limited this adoption in the past: State

government staff were not in a position to take up the approach given uncertainty in roles and

responsibilities with major restructuring of Government Departments underway; and, the

approach needed to be applied more broadly across the State to be part of a State wide

decision making, policy or planning approach. This project aimed to raise awareness of the

WAdss method in NSW and Queensland and to scope out the potential for greater use of the

existing WAdss applications and possibilities for the development of new applications.

Meetings have been held with interested agency and CMA staff in NSW and Queensland, and

potential future avenues for adoption and new applications have been identified.

The theme of this edition of RipRap is looking at overseas research, knowledge and experience to see what help we can get for river and riparian management in Australia.

With recent advances in technology irrigators can now more precisely control delivery of mineral nutrients and water to the roots of perennial tree crops. These technologies, collectively referred to as fertigation, provide the opportunity to adopt and implement highly technical management programs, such as open hydroponics, that use drip irrigation to deliver a balanced mixture of nutrients and water. This research bulletin provides an overview of a project, funded by the National Program for Sustainable Irrigation, that aims to investigate some of the issues specific to using fertigation in Australia and work with irrigators to upgrade their knowledge and skills to maximise the new technologies.

Despite the widespread promotion and adoption of precision agriculture in dry-land cropping systems, the concept of irrigation being part of precision agricultural systems is still getting off the ground, both in Australia and internationally. There is currently no cohesive framework available to guide research, development or adoption of precision irrigation and its associated support technologies. This project is reviewing irrigation research, existing technologies and the use of precision irrigation. It will assess the role of current irrigation application technologies in precision irrigation, variable rate applications, adaptive control, and the sensing and decision support requirements. Opportunities for adoption and future research will also be identified. The first stage of the project - conceptualising and defining precision irrigation - is summarised in this research bulletin. Any feedback on this information would be gratefully received. The newness of precision irrigation means there has been very little discussion around the concept-and any research being conducted will certainly benefit from shared knowledge.

To achieve consistency in data sets and to assist in interpretation and comparison of results, at the beginning of this program, the Land and Water Resources R&D Corporation (LWRRDC) requested that common protocols be established for sampling, data production and reduction, validation and completeness, for use by the separate projects of the joint program. It was recognised that the methods of analysis vary slightly to suit local needs of each laboratory and project, but a common basis was necessary for assessment of data, to provide consistency and for valid comparisons to be possible. LWRRDC also requested that a Quality Assurance project (QA) be conducted as part of the Minimising the Riverine Environmental Impact of Pesticides R&D Program. Both the original recommendations for sampling and analysis and the results of the QA are described in this publication.