Methods
Irrigation methods in Australia have improved over many years allowing for more efficient production per megalitre of water used. Current methods include systems such as centre pivot irrigation, impact (knocker) sprinklers, butterfly sprinklers, drip and surface irrigation. Surface irrigation remains the most common irrigation technique accounting for 50.6% of the total area irrigated in 2006/07 compared to 13.4% for drip, 12.7% for centre pivot and lateral move machines and 4.5% for microspray systems. These values may change from season to season due to water availability and commodity prices.
Centre pivot irrigation is often used for grass and fodder crops where the water can be distributed over a considerable period of time. In other crops where moisture stress is a complex concern, for example during the growing of cauliflower, water is required to be distributed quickly two or three specific times per day at a rate of about 140% the evaporation replacement rate and for this impact sprinklers set every 12 square metres or butterfly sprinklers set every 6 square metres are required. Drip sprinklers can be used on many spaced planting locations but typically will be found as gravity fed systems on vineyards.
Earthworks such as laser levelling are often employed to improve water use efficiency and even distribution of water.
Read more about this topic: Irrigation In Australia
Famous quotes containing the word methods:
“A writer who writes, “I am alone” ... can be considered rather comical. It is comical for a man to recognize his solitude by addressing a reader and by using methods that prevent the individual from being alone. The word alone is just as general as the word bread. To pronounce it is to summon to oneself the presence of everything the word excludes.”
—Maurice Blanchot (b. 1907)
“How can you tell if you discipline effectively? Ask yourself if your disciplinary methods generally produce lasting results in a manner you find acceptable. Whether your philosophy is democratic or autocratic, whatever techniques you use—reasoning, a “star” chart, time-outs, or spanking—if it doesn’t work, it’s not effective.”
—Stanley Turecki (20th century)
“I think it is a wise course for laborers to unite to defend their interests.... I think the employer who declines to deal with organized labor and to recognize it as a proper element in the settlement of wage controversies is behind the times.... Of course, when organized labor permits itself to sympathize with violent methods or undue duress, it is not entitled to our sympathy.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)