Brian Caddy was involved on the project steering committee of the Root Zone Water, Salinity and Nutrient Management Under Precision Irrigation Project managed by Dr Tapas Biswas and Dr Gerrit Schrale which focused on changing awareness of what good water and salt management involves. The aim was for local irrigators and the community to better understand the need to actively monitor and manage root-zone salinity, in addition to achieving high water use efficiency. The particular focus is on avoiding salinity build up at the rootzone at times of limited water availability.g

Oxygation involves mixing atmospheric air with irrigation water using a venturi and delivering it via a surface or subsurface drip irrigation system. Increasing competition on supply of fresh water for irrigation by agricultural, domestic, sports and industrial users demands water use efficient irrigation methods and compliance with environmental regulations.

Water and energy are critical drivers for life as well as agricultural production. Agricultural processes combine water and energy resources to produce food and fibre crops for human and animal consumption. The current level of global growth and development achieved can be attributed to the quality and quantity of water and energy being consumed (Hellegers et al., 2008). However, the consumption of these resources is not without consequence. It is therefore imperative that we consider the sustainability of these precious but limited resources in relation to agriculture, if we are to continue to provide food for the global population and to achieve the required gains in production necessary in the future.

Good soil structure is essential for healthy, resilient plants because it allows them to develop extensive, active root systems. This promotes efficient use of water and nutrients, encourages biological activity and buffers plants against drought and other hardship. It is a neglected, but vital component of soil fertility.

Rob Holmes is a cotton consultant who participated in the training activities of the Water Smart project and collected benchmarking data using the Watertrack Rapid tool.

Over the last decade, grape growers in SE South Australia have had their water entitlements converted to volumetric allocations, experienced a reduction in annual rainfall and seen a rise in the salinity of groundwater which is used for irrigation. Irrigators have moved away from flood and sprinkler irrigation, which was still widely used in the last decade of the 20th century, to precision irrigation applied with drippers. Annual application rates have decreased from between 4 and 6 ML/ha down to 2 or less ML/ha. In middle of the first decade in the 21st century, salinity damage was emerging in some vineyards. In response the Limestone Coast Wine Industry Council convened a Root Zone Salinity Workshop in May 2006 at Padthaway. The current project addresses concerns raised following this workshop

The project aimed to address the information deficit amongst irrigators, water resource managers and local government to ensure that irrigation in this region has a sustainable and productive future.

Presented in this report is a new system of orchard soil management that overcomes coalescence. It involves planting of rye grass, which produces rhizosheaths of soil around each of its roots to aid development of properties found in the world's best soils.

Fertigation is being increasingly adopted by citrus producers as an alternative to traditional approaches to supplying fertilisers to trees.

The project was developed to test the hypothesis: a depressed leaching efficiency (LE) in the Lower Murray irrigation districts raises the root zone salinity and, improved water use efficiency (WUE) has an upper limit determined by that field's LE and its variance'. The specific objectives were to: Determine/update the salinity relationships for irrigated horticulture along the Lower