Better Burnett

Recently Growcom held a field day for Central Burnett’s citrus growers to showcase the outcomes from their project within BCCA’s Better Burnett Catchment Recovery Program. The field day was held at the property of Ken Harris in Gayndah and was sponsored by AustSafe and Wesfarmers.

The focus of the Growcom project was to assist citrus growers with action on ground which will lead to an improvement in productivity and the resource condition of our catchment waterways.

The project facilitated a number of citrus growers in the Central Burnett district ,through soil and nutrient management risk assessment modules which are part of Growcom’s FMS resources.With assistance from Growcom’s Farming Management Systems Officer Robert Doyle, growers analysed the results of the risk assessment bench marking and identified activies that might reduce soil and nutrient loss.

Growers provided with incentives to implement some suggested improvements from the risk assessment.Some of these improvements included the modification of slashers to increase organic matter for the soil, improvements to irrigation systems, the introduction of fertigation systems and the installation of water monitoring equipment.

The field day had speakers from Lindsay Rural on the advantages of fertigation as well as a talk from Water for Profit Field Officer, Andrew O’Farrell on the importance of irrigation distribution uniformity.

Robert Doyle said “after the projects were completed we completed the risk assessment a second time and found an improvement on all properties”. Major investors for the Growcom and BCCA partnership are the Burnett Mary Regional Group for NRM.