B. Maheshwari (1), M. Plunkett (2) and P. Singh (1)

Preferred presentation format: Refereed Paper

Affiliation(s): (1) School of Environment and Agriculture, University of Western Sydney, Locked bag 1797, Penrith South DC, NSW 1797, b.maheshwari@uws.edu.au

(2) New South Wales Agriculture, Locked Bag 11, Windsor, NSW 2756, matthew.plunkett@agric.nsw.gov.au

Title: Mr. Matthew Plunkett Position: Extension Officer Organisation: NSW Agriculture Contact email: matthew.plunkett@agric.nsw.gov.au Contact phone: (02)  4577 0639

Keywords: Water management, farmer attitude, transfer of technology

Hawkesbury – Nepean Catchment (HNC) is an important peri-urban farming area for the supply of fresh vegetables, fruits, turf and other farm products to growing population of Sydney metropolitan area. The catchment is extremely important for the people of Sydney Metropolitan Area (SMA) as it is the main source of water for four million who live in the area. The pressures of urbanisation in the SMA have intensified competition for water between irrigators and urban users. This is further exacerbated due to water industry reforms that affected allocation, use and price of irrigation water. It is now increasingly being accepted that irrigators need to employ ways to use water more wisely and access alternative water supplies. One of the possible ways to conserve water is improve the practice of irrigation scheduling by individual farmers. Over 30 irrigators from the HNC were surveyed to investigate how they perceive the currently available irrigation scheduling devices and procedures and how they make scheduling decisions as a part of their irrigation management strategy. The crops considered in the study include fruits, vegetables, pastures, turf, olives, nursery and cut flowers. A number of factors that affect irrigation scheduling in the area were identified, including the limited understanding of soil-water-plant relationship, cost of monitoring soil-moisture and accommodating irrigation activity with other farm tasks. In most cases, irrigators’ own experience of irrigation practice played an important role as to the irrigation scheduling decision.

Key learning points:

• Strategies that farmers employ to make their routine irrigation scheduling decisions.
• Farmers perceived limitations as to implementing irrigation scheduling.
• Ways to inspire more farmers to adopt irrigation scheduling