9 Oct 2014

Giant irrigators take to the hills

7:34 am on 9 October 2014

Giant pivot irrigators commonly seen working their way across dairy and cropping farms on the Canterbuy Plains are now increasingly taking to the slopes on hill country farms as well.

Farmers in areas like Central and North Otago have been applying water to the hills for some time, but irrigation is spreading to new areas including foothills in Canterbury and in eastern North Island.

Irrigation New Zealand's project manager Paul Reese says it's not all dairy farming either.

"Obviously there's going to be a component of dairy farming, but in a lot of cases hill country irrigation is going on to larger properties so it might be a sheep and beef property and they've got a portion of their farm that is irrigable.

"What they're doing is maybe moving from store stock into finishing all their progeny, which is a really profitable way of putting on irrigation and growing their business."

However, Mr Reese said irrigating hill country is more challenging, for example retaining water on slopes so it soaks in and minimising run-off.

He is co-author of a new guidebook to help farmers adapt irrigation for steeper slopes supported by the Government's Sustainable Farming Fund. AgResearch, Landcare Research and Aqualinc have also contributed.

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