Price For Irrigating

[Luke Cropwalker]

If it were possible to get a neighbour to apply 25mm of irrigated water to a field, what would a reasonable market rate be for such an application?

 

[Breckland Boy]

If it were possible to get a neighbour to apply 25mm of irrigated water to a field, what would a reasonable market rate be for such an application?

Alot will depend on how easy it is to get the water to the field.
I know of £50/acre to set up (laying pipes and hydrants) a field for a season. Once that is done water via a reel and rain gun will be £38-£45 /acre inch.

 

[Yale]

For comparison.

@cows sh#t me to tears

 

[Chae1]

What's the value to the crop it's being applied to?

How much would you pay for 20mm of rain?

Be better than any fertiliser or fungicide at the moment.

 

[teslacoils]

What's the value to the crop it's being applied to?

How much would you pay for 20mm of rain?

Be better than any fertiliser or fungicide at the moment.

Thing is.....20mm rain for everyone is worth nothing. 10mm just for me? That's different.

 

[cows sh#t me to tears]

For comparison.

@cows sh#t me to tears

Incomparable really. No one "contract" irrigates here.


But for the principle of the exercise...
A centre pivot irrigator... $2500/ ac just for irrigator.
Associated pipe work plus pump and motor....close to another $1000/ac (smaller setups probably cost more per ac...)
26mm takes me 2 days to apply to 60ac under one pivot. Using around 4 megs/day. So roughly 8ac /meg so about 125 000ltrs/ac
Flood irrigation. Probably $1500/ac. But once done has little ongoing costs apart from water.

Then the water.....$45 to 50/ megalitre delivery costs? (That doesn't include buying it on the open market if you dont have any allocated to you. During the last drought water was $650/meg)We also have to pay the state government for the water, and the irrigation company for delivery entitlements. That meant during our recent 2 years of zero allocation we were paying for something we didnt receive as we all have delivery entitlements that were equivalent to what water entitlements was on the farm. Example.....recently bought a new farm. Permanent water had been sold off of it. It has 480 delivery entitlements on that we have to pay $10 to 12/entitlement for , even though there is no water with the farm.

I know the above is irrelevant to you guys. Thought you might find it interesting...