Murrumbidgee Regional High School

Excellence and Innovation

Telephone02 6966 9600

Emailmurrumbidgee-h.school@det.nsw.edu.au

Year 12 Agriculture Investigates Agritech

Agritech

Year 12 Agriculture recently toured local agricultural businesses to learn of the new technological developments in our local area which impact food & fibre production. 

The students are currently studying Farming for the 21st Century, which focuses on the new technological developments in Agriculture. First stop, students learned how Murrumbidgee Irrigation has implemented Irrigation technology known as Total Channel Control (TCC). TCC  encompasses Easy Water Ordering technology that uses remotely controlled Irrigation Flume Gates to manage water to each user in a sustainable manner. 

Students then saw how Padman Irrigation uses moisture monitoring sensors to irrigate fields at the Irrigation Research Extension Committee's (IREC) farm in Whitton. They then moved on to learn how 'Shirts are tracked from the Dirt' at Southern Cotton using RFID GPS coding on each cotton module produced.

One of the real highlights of the trip was the discussion with ex-Griffith teacher Mr. Kieran O'Keefe (Cotton Info) on the data being produced in each paddock and how cloud technology was mapping this to improve the efficiency of the next crop to be produced in each field.

Students then learned more of this technology from Matthew Toscan at the My John Deere Operations Centre. There, real-time live data is able to be collected to demonstrate the efficiencies and effectiveness of each machine and/or operation working in the field. 

To cap the day off, ex-Wade teacher Mr. Stu Whytcross (Voyager Craft Malt) discussed how Silo Technology is able to trace each grain produced from the individual farm to beverages produced all over the world.

Students will now use this knowledge to complete an assessment evaluating the use of various technologies in agriculture. Murrumbidgee Regional High School would like to thank the personnel from Murrumbidgee Irrigation, Southern Cotton, IREC, Cotton Australia, Cotton Info, Cavaso Farming, Voyager Craft Malt & The Whitton Malthouse for their assistance in conducting this excursion.