About the Irrigation Systems at Farmtech

The Farmtech irrigation and farm re-development project commenced in November 2006, after East Gippsland Institute of TAFE successfully applied for Commonwealth Government funding through the Community Water Grants Scheme. A Grant of $175,191 was made available through the Department of the Environment and Heritage.

This was an exciting development for the Farmtech Education Centre (formerly known as the Drome Road Campus), as it allowed the farm to be developed into a centre to showcase agricultural and horticultural best practice, and to demonstrate methods to efficiently manage water on a fully-operational commercial farm.

Launched on 11 February 2009, East Gippsland TAFE’s “Farmtech Education Centre” provides an innovative learning-farm environment in regional Victoria. Farmtech covers 32.7 hectares with an irrigated area of 24 hectares. The Water entitlement, which comprises of a high reliability allocation of 98.7 megalitres, drawn from the channel on the Northern boundary, and a right to draw a further 18.3 megalitres from a drain on the eastern boundary.

The irrigation area is made up of five (5) state of the art irrigation systems which are managed by a computerised control system. The irrigation area has been broken up into various size blocks incorporating:

• Flood irrigation   
• Sub-surface drip   
• Fixed sprinklers   
• Travelling irrigator   
• K-line Irripod system

The entire system is maintained by a high tech scheduling system installed by “Mait Industries”. The system includes four types of sensors that are installed throughout the farm, they include:

• EnviroPro (Moisture, Temperature and Salinity)
• EasyAg (Moisture)   
• AquaSpy (Moisture)   
• Aquaspy Fin (Moisture)

The system is also supported by three types of probes:

• Aquaflex (Moisture + Temperature)   
• GroPoint Lite (Moisture)   
• Aquatel (Moisture + Temperature).

All of which are monitored by a series of signal stations based around the Farm.

Each Irrigation Block has been laser graded, and drains provided to take run-off to a re-use dam (2.46 megalitre capacity). Pumps allow flood irrigation as well as K-line Irripod irrigation to be carried out with the water collected in this re-use dam.

East Gippsland TAFE is proud to showcase the Farmtech Education Centre – a new era in agricultural and horticultural training for the Gippsland region, linking commercial efficiency with business innovation and environmental sensitivity.