Tight race for irrigation award

Next week more light will be shed on who will be the standout among four top operators in a competition celebrating excellence in sustainable irrigation.

Two Mid Canterbury farms are among four finalists vying for the Zimmatic Trailblazer Sustainable Irrigation Awards. The awards single out farmers showing outstanding achievements in irrigation with responsible, innovative and environmental stewardship.

Already the competition is shaping up to be a close-run race with an additional finalist added to the mix as usually only three farmers are selected for final judging.

A panel of three judges spent half a day earlier this month at Wairarapa’s Ongaha run by Shane and Lynnette McManaway, Logan Nation and Nico Butler and Featherston’s Kaiwaiwai Dairies farmed by Aidan Bichan, Vern Brasell and Neville Fisher.

Over the next week they will visit the Mid Canterbury finalists of Ben and Shannon Johnson’s Bodiam Dairies and Kilmurry Farm sharemilker Eugene Cronin, who is a farm supervisor for Dairy Holdings.

The panel includes Irrigation NZ (INZ) chairwoman Keri Johnston, former chairwoman Nicky Hyslop and INZ principal technical adviser Stephen McNally.

To find a winner judges would weigh up the finalists’ sustainable irrigation management, irrigation-driven improvements, environment protection and their environmental and community stewardship, awards co-ordinator Sarah Elliot said.

"They will be looking at the irrigation component of their farming operation and how the system design, infrastructure and management combines as an efficient, sustainable system."

Mrs Elliot said judges would consider the farms’ environment from soils to climate to waterways and the farm type and if the irrigation design, technology and operation takes it into account.

"There’s often more to optimising the system than meets the eye. When you are coming out of winter or a wet spring and given soil variability over most farms there will be some soils beginning to dry out than others and still some wet areas. So, it is about knowing your farm and soils and knowing where irrigation needs to be applied and where it doesn’t and then ensuring you don’t get behind when the summer heat and evapotranspiration rises."

She said the awards had, since being launched in 2000, sparked conversations about smart practices and cutting-edge technologies available to farmers to improve their irrigation efficiency and freshwater conservation.

Ongaha is a specialist cropping and trading operation with some sheep breeding and the other three finalists are dairy businesses.

The overall and category winners will be announced at a Wellington function on November 6.