Rookwood Weir Crop Suitability and Water Demand
Service: Agronomic assessment and advice on proposed cropping
Client: Synergies Economic Consulting
Location: Rookwood
Start: February 2020
Completion: June 2020
Verterra was requested to support Synergies by providing agronomic advice on crop suitability for the range of soils within thin Rookwood Weir irrigation zone, the range in expected crop productivities, and projected crop water demand.
Verterra first undertook a detailed literature review of target crop types and prepared a brief fact sheets on key agronomic characteristics including soil and climatic requirements, and variation in benchmark yield with variation in site and climatic conditions.
Crops were then matched to soil types and the spatial extent of land suitability for each crop identified. Finally, crop water demand was estimated for each crop by modelling.
This eliminated the highly variable and subjective estimates reported in the literature, providing a consistent and defensible basis to estimate water demand. The data was then collated to enable comparison of regional competitiveness for target crops.
