A BANANA farm in Australia’s wettest town has taken the hi-tech road in irrigation, turning to completely automated systems on all of its farms.
The Tully-based Mackay’s, Australia’s biggest banana-growing enterprise, produces 2.5 million 13kg boxes each year.
The Mackay family has four separate farms for its banana operation and all of them have irrigation systems from Mait Industries installed by The Water Shed dealership at Innisfail.
The first system was installed on Weary Pocket, a 200ha farm supplying to the main packing shed.
The second system was installed at the same time (2011) on its 250ha South Davidson farm at Euramo near Tully.
The third system, installed in 2012, was for part of the 500ha main company base, Bolinda Estates, adjacent to Weary Pocket.
The fourth system was completed in October last year at the Lakeland Downs farm, four hours north of the Tully properties.
All four ‘iNTELLiTROL’ systems consist of a Mait base station equipped with iNTELLiPUMP, the software for the irrigation scheduling, and iNTELLiGRAPH, the software for monitoring soil moisture probes, weather stations and flow sensors.
Combinations of one-station and four-station field radios operate the control valves.
There are soil moisture sensors and a weather station on each farm.
All four farms have pump pressure monitoring and mainline pressure monitoring.
Weary Pocket and South Davidson each have 25 valves, and there are 12 valves on the plantings at Bolinda Estates.
All of the irrigation control is done from the home property at Bolinda.
TeamViewer is used to make changes and check the operation of the irrigation system.
Banana enterprise manager Stephen Mackay said if the business could afford to, it would have a Mait on every single banana plant.
“This is the first system that we have had to fully run effectively, so that we can turn the valves on or off manually or automatically,” Mr Mackay said.
“The extras involved in this system are very important, such as remote operation, the support for the automation and the graphs and records.”
He said that although the operation is based in one of the wettest spots in Australia, irrigation was an integral part of the business.
“We could be irrigating and get a rain event and the valves will turn off automatically,” he said.
“Our customers don’t want surprises, so we have the benefit of data recording of everything that we do, including the timing of the pumps, power usage, and, of course, weather data.”
They have a dedicated irrigation staff member who monitors the systems via teamviewer and they have compiled useful historical information to help predict future growth trends.
Mr Mackay said staff were regularly making changes to the irrigation as they are in the field using their tablets or iPhones, so they can be watching the reality of their actions.
“It achieves exactly those things that we want,” he said.
“This is taking our staff to a different level of controlling our irrigation, both at home or even while they are away internationally.
“We are using water far more efficiently than we have historically. We now have the programme to manage it. There is real information available.
“We are very, very happy with the support that we get for this system.
“The bonus is that the people at Mait have an agronomic as well as electronic background, so that enables a better level of support.”
Mait Industries, based in Melbourne, provides innovative monitoring and irrigation control solutions for all facets of agriculture.
With extensive agronomic and engineering expertise, the practical and technical issues of farming are at the forefront of the design of systems.
Rob Webber, principal, The Water Shed said that the latest project was the seventh Mait system that he had installed in two years.
“They are head and shoulders above other systems,” he said.
