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Waterforce Products

Pivot irrigation

Pivot irrigators move around a centre point and can irrigate your crops or land in either a part-circle or full-circle operation. They can move in either direction and will often operate 24/7.

These highly automated machines will give you precise control over the application amount – optimising water use and efficient uptake to achieve ideal pasture or crop growth.

Pivots are suitable for irrigating tall crops and can also straddle shelter belts, small buildings and sheds where necessary. Variable Rate Irrigation (VRI) technology can be used to change the application to suit the season, individual soil or crop requirements. Pivots can handle undulating ground and gentle slopes, and precision corner arms can be added to ensure the corners of your paddocks or fields are irrigated also.

Pivots consist of steel supporting structures and large spans of water pipes. Each span is mounted on a drive tower and base beam incorporating an electric gear motor which drives a set of gearboxes and tractor wheels.

If you are looking to install pivot irrigation on your property, WaterForce engineers will consider:

Water source and extraction method
Climate, soil types and crops
GPS surveying, design, plans and mark out
Energy requirements – diesel or electric
Product selection
Health and safety
Project management
Service and maintenance

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Key Features

Virtually no labour is required so pivots can operate 24/7.
They deliver very high uniformity to optimise water use and achieve even crop growth.
Pivots operate on low pressure which helps minimise running costs.
Can offer short rotation times, applying a lower application rate, to minimise water losses and result in optimum crop growth.
Gives precise control over application amount to optimise water use. You can also apply light amounts to sensitive crops.
The highly automated system, can be controlled remotely and will enable telemetry for data collection and/or fault reporting, to help meet compliance requirements and minimise downtime.
Can irrigate tall crops such as maize or straddle shelter belts, buildings, dairy sheds and small homes so you can optimise the areas irrigated.
Individual sprinklers or banks of sprinklers can be turned on/off so stockyards, buildings, tracks, waterways and silage can be kept dry.
Low maintenance and low annual servicing costs which help save you money.
Low application rates on suitably-sized machines allows efficient water uptake by the soil without run off – optimising your water use.
Variable Rate Irrigation (VRI) technology can be incorporated to reduce or increase the application depending on soil or crop requirements.
Nozzles can easily be removed for checking and unblocking when necessary.
Can handle undulating ground and gentle slopes to suit variable terrain.
Can add a “precision corner arm” to capture a larger amount of missed corners.

Highlights

Some corner areas will be missed on a standard pivot. You will need to install secondary irrigation (which may require more labour) or a corner arm which will raise the cost per hectare.
If tall shelter is a strong priority then it will be more difficult and expensive to work a pivot system around. Power poles/lines require similar consideration.
Often a pivot will irrigate existing farm tracks/races resulting in increased track maintenance.An upgrade to VRI technology can allow you to switch sprinklers off over tracks/races.
Wheel rutting can be a problem but there are successful ways to mitigate this issue.
If the pivot detects a fault, all irrigation under this machine will cease. However, with remote fault alerts available this is not usually a major consideration.
Pivots are more prone to wind damage than smaller guns or pod type systems. Ensure your pivot’s position is with the predominant wind and anchor down when necessary (or keep irrigating if a wind risk is expected as this increases the machine’s weight).