Lowden Hills Farm Water Reticulation Case Study
Outcome:
The design and installation of the Lowden Hills Stock Farm Water Reticulation system supplying summer water requirements for 15,000 stock units.
Brief:
Tauwhareparae Farms Ltd farms a total area of 11,253ha (6000ha effective) grazing approximately 52,000 stock units. The development involved two stages. The first stage being the design and construction of a water storage dam, the second stage being the design and installation of a farm water reticulation system.
The stock water storage dam gives a harvestable storage volume of 37,100m3. An automated farm water reticulation system was designed by AgFirst Engineering to deliver summer water requirements to approximately 1500ha of intensively farmed land.
The installation of reticulated stock water has enabled intensification with the implementation of subdivision, pastoral renewal and an intensive summer cropping programme.
The reticulation of a guaranteed stock water reticulation system has increased stock carrying capacity significantly, and with the certainty of summer stock water, this has given the confidence of implemented stock policies that increase financial returns.
Design Specifications:
The reticulation system has been designed to
- Deliver daily stock water requirements to storage over a 12 hour pumping period.
- Deliver peak daily stock water requirements to the trough, over a 10 hour period for sheep and 6 hour period for cattle.
- Incorporate a minimum of one days water storage within the reticulation system.
- All troughs installed have concrete Ballcock protection.
- All mainlines installed are polyethylene pipe, providing flexibility to accommodate small degrees of land movement.
- Mainlines with pipe pressure ratings up to PN20 have been installed. These mainlines utilise specialist polyethylene pipe and fittings.
- Air release and vacuum breaker valves have been installed at strategic locations along the 90mm mainline.