A new lab at Agriculture Victoria's Mildura SmartFarm is set to support transformative research, ensuring Sunraysia's growing almond industry can continue to thrive.
The building upgrade is supporting the work of researchers who are developing advanced production systems for the Australian almond industry, including the incorporation of a range of innovative sensing technologies that are expected to transform the management of current and future orchards.
The new development includes secure storage for orchard machinery and vehicles, office space and a workshop.
A wet lab within the building means researchers can 'sample' soil and leaves directly from the adjacent temperate nut experimental orchard and quickly process those samples for analysis, without the need to travel to other laboratories ten kilometres away, which can lead to sample deterioration, logistical difficulties and time delays.
External Wi-Fi connections are further enhancing connectivity across the whole site as well as supporting online connectivity with other SmartFarms in Victoria.
School and industry groups will be invited to visit, learn and benefit from the demonstration of Ag Tech that is funded by the Victorian Government's $20-million 'SmartSkills from SmartFarms' initiative and the research experiments established with co-investment by the Federal Department of Water and Environment.
The Mildura SmartFarm and the temperate nut research orchard have been the principal focus of Agriculture Victoria Senior Research Scientist, Dr Michael Treeby, since joining the department in 2015.
Innovative technologies such as next-generation soil moisture sensors and spectral imaging are used by researchers to better assess and manage almond trees' water needs and develop better ways to measure their nitrogen levels in real time.
"The goals are to enable almond producers to make efficient use of input resources and reduce their environmental footprint," Dr Treeby said.
Other plantings established on the Mildura SmartFarm were set up to provide orchard design parameters for higher density planting.
Trellised trees have been established to determine how many spurs might be possible on a tree in a 2D configuration.
Another planting will allow the investigation of the relationships between light and spur fertility, and the findings will help almond producers decide on row width, orientation and tree height.
"The Mildura SmartFarm is unique in what it has to offer in terms of its plantings, layout and sensing technologies and will be a major asset to the nut industries for many years to come, especially the almond industry," Dr Treeby said.
"The whole program is geared toward helping almond producers reduce costs, use nitrogen and water more efficiently and transition to denser planted, more intensive production systems."
Agriculture Victoria's five SmartFarms – Ellinbank, Hamilton, Horsham, Tatura and Mildura – are connected to each other and to the leading-edge big data and systems biology capabilities at AgriBio, the Centre for AgriBioscience, in Bundoora.
More about the Mildura SmartFarm is available on the Agriculture Victoria website.
Agriculture Victoria's investment in its SmartFarms aligns with the Victorian Government's commitment to Grow and Modernise agriculture through its new strategy for Agriculture in Victoria which can be found in full online.
