The network was commissioned in 2022 with a design target of 40% water reduction against furrow irrigation on the same soils. Two seasons of the client’s own records now exist, so the number can be checked rather than claimed.
What the records show
Water applied per hectare fell 46% against the furrow baseline — better than the design target, mostly because the sectorisation let the agronomist stop irrigating blocks that did not need it. Yield rose 28% in the second season, which is the client’s figure from their own weighbridge.
The saving that mattered was not the pump. It was being able to switch off eleven of twenty-four blocks in the same week.
The block that under-performed
Sector 19 never reached its design uniformity. The cause was not the network: the block sits on a soil transition the topographic survey did not capture, and half of it drains four times faster than the rest. It is being split into two sectors this season, which is a design change we should have caught at survey stage.
What we carried into later projects
Soil sampling density doubled
One profile per 40 ha instead of per 80 ha on any site with visible relief.
Sector metering as standard
Per-block flow measurement is now in every drip specification we issue. It is what turned this project into evidence.
