The Agronomy Network met for the second time in Echuca on Friday 9th December to hear about and discuss past and current agronomic and irrigation research occurring in our region. The group heard from Agriculture Victoria Senior Research Scientists, Kevin Kelly and Mike Morris, on current and past research in the agronomic and irrigation hydrology space. Also on the agenda was an introduction to the Forage Value Index project by Ron Prestige from Dairy Australia. The session

They don’t need to be deep - design them to your flow rate. The faster your flow the deeper they can be. With 10 ML flows on Tim’s bay they were only a few inches deep. If you have faster flow, experiment with a greater depth. Keep them clean all year round. They need to be clean to work effectively and in winter to get benefits as well. When cleaning them out don’t make them deeper - just buzz out the grass. Get the spacing of the spinner cuts right. Paul’s rule of thumb is

Picture: Mike Morris, DEDJTR irrrigation researcher speaking about spinner cuts with the Humphris PIT team. They can be both modelled using new research that the Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources (DEDJTR) are using to improve the precision of border check irrigation. The Humphris PIT heard about this and the importance of good drainage at the second meeting for the Accelerating Change program. At the farm of Tim and Lyndal Humphris, of Tongala,