Through its Precision Agronomy (PA) Services, Thomas Elder Sustainable Agriculture (TESA) helps growers use farm data to better understand paddock variability and improve decision-making.
The recent addition of Variable Rate Irrigation (VRI) technology provides growers with another tool to optimise water use, manage variability and maximise productivity.
For Tom Jefferies, Senior Ag-Tech Advisor with Elders, understanding variability is often the first step towards better irrigation outcomes.
"Variability in soil affects the speed of water uptake by the plant, creating under-irrigated, over-irrigated and optimally irrigated areas within individual fields," Tom said.
"It often results in variable crop quality, inconsistent yields and challenges with harvest timing."
While these differences are not always visible from the surface, they can have a significant impact on crop performance, irrigation efficiency and profitability.
Through its PA Services, TESA works with growers to build a clearer understanding of what is happening across their farms.
They use data from:
- EM38 soil mapping
- strategic soil sampling
- yield analysis
- satellite imagery
- drone technology.
Image showing highly variable soil impacting potato establishment.
"By layering these datasets together, we can better understand soil texture, moisture-holding capacity, production constraints and performance trends across individual paddocks," Tom said.
The goal is not simply to collect more data, but to use the right data to uncover hidden yield potential, improve crop quality and support smarter input placement. By understanding variability across a paddock, you can target investments and inputs where they will have the greatest impact.
This information also helps identify management zones within a paddock and forms the foundation for VRI mapping, enabling irrigation to be tailored to the specific needs of different areas.
Tom noted the technology offers particular potential in high-value, high-input irrigated cropping systems where small increases in yield and small decreases in inputs through variable rate technology return significant increases in yields and return.
"VRI can make the biggest impact in high-value, high-input, large-scale overhead sprinkler-irrigated crops such as potatoes and over-head irrigated summer crops, where maintaining optimal soil moisture can deliver the strongest return on investment," he said.
"At a farm level, irrigated fields with high soil-texture variability are often where growers can see the greatest benefit."
Importantly, Tom emphasised that VRI delivers the best results when supported by quality data and a sound understanding of the paddock. Successful irrigation starts with understanding the factors influencing performance before implementing technology solutions.
"Our focus is on optimising existing data and technology investments to deliver measurable return on investment, prior to adding in more data" he said.
"We're helping growers identify new opportunities to increase production, optimise hectares, reduce inputs and get the best value from farm investments.
"Ultimately, it's about increasing a farmer's ability to do more with less and reducing wastage”.
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