On the back roads surrounding Condo you will find Dasha Frankel going about his business, surrounded by healthy green irrigated crops stretching towards the sky under the gaze of a number of huge red structures known as Zimmatic pivots.
Dasha Frankel operates a beef trading business and has long term contracts with major supermarkets. He has a large feedlot and requires a reliable supply of fresh feed for his trade cattle. To guarantee a reliable supply of quality beef cattle to his clients, efficiency and sustainability are top of mind for Dasha and this is what first led him to look at overhead sprinklers.
Dasha has been an ongoing customer of AGnVET Services for more than 30 years . It was through this relationship that when Dasha was looking to improve his crop yield that he turned to Darling Irrigation. They designed the layout to maximize coverage, designed pump stations, mainlines etc.
The original project started out as 5 pivots and 2 pump stations but kept growing as the milestones and customer expectations were met. The count to date is 10 pivots, 4 pump stations which included 3 bores as well as a river pumping station.
There were some major considerations, undertaking a project of this proportion, such as uninterrupted power supply, water capacity, varieties of cropping as well as soil types. Managing field staff, various contractors including the distance from Darling home base, as well as managing client expectation on the journey of concept to completion.
The team from DI were focused on achieving a positive result, a dedicated site manager was secured for the duration of the project to ensure field staff and various contractors were engaged safely and effectively ensuring the project stayed on task with no injuries recorded.
Kyle Wells the Project Manager said “The project was a success due to the high level of communication by all, the quality of the Zimmatic pivots, as well as everybody working together as a team with the right skill sets to complement each other”
The benefits of the project included the following key points
- Water efficiencies
- Diverse Cropping with higher yields
- Year round growing
- Measured watering
- Remote water delivery and monitoring via Mobile phone ( FieldNET)
- Increased stock numbers
- Reduced labor on farm
- Power consumption efficiencies
The project became the talk of the community which resulted in an on farm field day hosted by DI and Dasha to showcase the wins, discuss the obstacles of taking on a project of this nature with potential customers as well as receiving an awesome feed and a chance to chat with like minded people in a relaxed environment void of any “gloss overs”
Dasha’s thoughts? He was happy with the ease for his staff and very happy with his dealings with Darling Irrigation .
Just another example of “making every drop count”
Preventative maintenance for pivot and linear irrigation pays
