Welcome to our first newsletter for 2024.
The team has been busy planning our calendar of events, activities and projects for the year. We look forward to strengthening our engagement with the community and creating new opportunities for you to contribute and engage with the Centre.
With International Women’s Day coming up on 8 March, it is a particularly good time to highlight the importance of our summer internship program, which is funded by the Invergowrie Foundation and supports women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). You can read more below about the students’ experience in Mildura. We were sad to say goodbye to them this month, but it was great to see how their industry knowledge and skills had grown over their eight weeks in the region.
The Centre is a long-time supporter of the annual girls in STEM breakfast, which will be held on Tuesday 19 March. The invitation is out again to local women who work in STEM to join their like-minded peers as guests and engage with the cohort of curious secondary school students by sharing your knowledge and passions. The added bonus is you’ll get to hear Dr Gail Iles, an Associate Professor in physics, talk about aeroplanes and rocket science. Dr Iles has worked for the European Space Agency in France and as an astronaut instructor at the European Astronaut Centre.
In exciting news, the manager of our One Basin CRC Mildura Hub will be starting in March. We look forward to bringing you more information on that as well as where you will be able to connect into our activities and events over the coming months.
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Rebecca Wells
MRIC Chief Executive
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New model for improved water forecasting
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A new method for forecasting seasonal water allocations could be the “single most important” development to help reduce the impact of the next drought on Mallee irrigators.
The method has already been trialled on the Goulburn River system and was found to be much more accurate than the current method in predicting what water allocations will look like during the course of a season.
Now, University of Melbourne researchers are working with Goulburn–Murray Water, Murray–Darling Basin Authority, the Bureau of Meteorology and the Mallee Regional Innovation Centre (MRIC) to update the model for the Murray River system.
The project was identified as a priority for the Mallee region as part of MRIC’s drought consultations and has been funded by the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund.
MRIC consultant Tim Cummins said the new method was able to reduce the uncertainty of water allocation outlooks by up to 50 per cent.
“Increasingly we are seeing horticultural enterprises developed in the Mallee with people more prepared to rely on the water market to meet their water requirements each year, and they are going to be the major beneficiaries of this project,” Tim said.
“What it means is people would have more certain information about the water allocations they may get, so they can make better, more definite decisions about what to do with the water – whether to sell, buy or hold – and what crops to plant.
“It should also make the market more efficient because there is more information and more certainty, so people can make decisions with less risk for them.
“In times of drought, having more certainty about where allocation levels are going to end up will help minimise the need for irrigators to dry off high-value orchards and vineyards. Drying off crops would result in a significant economic loss in that year. But because we’re dealing with perennial horticulture crops, it would take another four or five years to get those irrigated lands back to full development.”
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Training the future of food production
Protected cropping is the fastest growing food producing sector in Australia, yet no vocational education and training is currently being delivered to build a workforce that meets industry needs.
Read more >>
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Advancing opportunities for women in science
A summer spent working in Mildura has given three university students unique experiences that will help to further them in their future studies and careers.
Read more >>
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Profile: Paul Northey
Supporting an innovative and sustainable horticultural industry is of paramount importance for Paul Northey – the newest member of the Mallee Regional Innovation Centre’s Strategic Advisory Panel.
Read more >>
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- RESOURCE: Hort Innovation has released its 2022/2023 Australian Horticulture Statistics Handbook – a leading resource for the nation's horticulture statistics and market information. It includes the latest production, international trade, processing volumes, and fresh market distribution data, across 75 horticultural categories.
- VIDEO: Dried Fruits Australia launched new dried grape variety Murray Bold at a field walk in January. About 70 people attended, including members of our team. See the new variety and details of the event in DFA’s new YouTube video.
- ARTICLE: Mallee Catchment Management Authority will soon undertake a salinity survey along a 770km stretch of the Murray River corridor. It will be the third time the region has been surveyed using airborne electromagnetic technology (AEM). Since the last survey was flown in 2007, the irrigation area has expanded by 42 per cent. Read more and watch a video of an AEM flyover here.
- RESOURCE: The National Farmers’ Federation, in consultation with industry, has developed the Australian Farm Data Code, which aims to promote adoption of digital technology by ensuring farmers have comfort in how their data is used, managed and shared. The voluntary framework sets best practice standards for data management for products and projects.
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