Cotton irrigation researcher Dr Alison McCarthy of the University of Southern Queensland has received the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID) Irrigation Young Professionals WatSave Award (2021) for her work on VARIwise.
The VARIwise technology combines in-season cotton crop imagery (collected from drones or in-field cameras) with crop production models to provide yield predictions for cotton growers throughout the season.
Knowing the yield prediction in-season helps growers make improved management decisions, like the timing of irrigations, plus plan for the sale of crops. Up until now, yield has been estimated using rules of thumb and manual boll counts.
Alison’s research is being conducted as a part of the Smarter Irrigation for Profit Phase 2 project, led by CRDC and supported by funding from the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment as part of its Rural R&D for Profit program.
For more on Alison’s research, see page 7 of our Autumn 2021 Spotlight magazine.
