Excellence in Irrigation Winners

2021 Winner: Outback Date Plantation

June 29, 2021 · By ASIC

Outback Date Plantation with Lucern Production

Queensland, Australia – Honor Award, Water Management, Planning & Analysis

 CONSULTANT

Jim Phillips, JP Water P/L

PROJECT OVERVIEW

  • Pastor Mark Hampel bought a property in at Charleville, Queensland, Australia to grow dates
  • It is an ideal area for growing dates, hot, dry, sandy soil. But dates too need irrigation and water in this area is usually a scarce commodity. Then it rains, in buckets and floods
  • As part of the purchase, Mark negotiated with the Murweh Regional Council to utilize the treated effluent from the Charleville township sewerage treatment plant
  • Dates grow slowly and, even though he had transplanted several mature trees, it would be 5+ years before the plantation would be in production
  • Date palms do not like getting their trunks wet as it causes pest and disease damage. Lucern (alfalfa) on the other hand likes regular watering, usually by spray
  • Turning the property in to a functioning plantation was always going to be a challenge and given that Pastor’s wages are not that high, had to be achieved on a tight budget
PROJECT NARRATIVE
  • The Plantation irrigation had to be capable of meeting the following:
    • Servicing two differing crop types, palms, and pasture
    • Keeping the palm trunks dry
    • Staying within a water budget
    • Remote operation
    • The unavailability of electrical power
    • Population hazards (Theft, vandalism etc.)
    • Turning the property in to a functioning plantation was always going to be a challenge and given that Pastor’s wages are not that high, had to be achieved on a tight budget
    • The treated effluent was channeled down to a sump, a holding lagoon, reed bed filter and finally a coarse gravel filter bed
    • From the sump, the semi filtered effluent was pumped into two holding tanks using a solar powered pump
    • The effluent was further treated in the tanks before being fed into the diesel centrifugal pump
    • Discharge from the centrifugal irrigation pump was passed through media filters then out into the DN100 PVC main
    • The plantation was divided up into 12 date irrigation areas and 13 lucern (alfalfa) areas
    ROLE OF THE IRRIGATION CONSULTANT
    • Calculation of the Peak Irrigation Requirement for both crops
    • Drip emitter flow rate and spacing recommendations based on the outcome of the PIR calculations and soil considerations for both crops
    • Hydraulic design works.
    • Initial and final storage tank capacity
    • Control system (GoldTec Oasis, hydraulic)
    • Oversight of initial installation of zone headworks, mainline thrust blocking, filter installation and pump container
    • Detailed Bill of Materials and suitable suppliers
    • Vetting of tenders for supply and responding to Requests for Information from suppliers.
    • Project commissioning

    Main holding lagoon prior to reed bed filter

    Reed bed filter into gravel filter into holding sump

     

     

    A solar powered pump moves water from the sump to storage tanks

     

     

                     

               Diesel Irrigation Pump

    Trenching

    Media Filtration

    Jim Phillips & Pastor Mark Hampel

    3-year old palm

     

     

     

    Entrance to main lagoon