State award for Tarwin farm

MIDDLE Tarwin Schreurs and Sons vegetable growers have won a state award for surface water for their multimillion dollar celery growing business at Middle Tarwin.

Adam and Chris Schreurs won the state award for their achievements in sustainable and efficient surface water use.

The irrigation system at their multimillion dollar celery growing business is networked to soil moisture probes and utilises sediment drainage channels, reuse dams and a natural wetland.

Among the first steps they took when they moved away from the city’s edge was to build a dam for winter fill and install more than 20km of underground agricultural pipe for drainage. All their work has an eye to the natural habitat created by the nearby Tarwin River.

Southern Rural Water’s regional winners Ashley and Lisa Mezenberg were runners-up in the irrigation category in the state finals.

Taking full advantage of modernisation programs by investing in their own initiatives has given the Denison dairy farmers efficiencies to keep them ahead of the field.

The Mezenbergs run two farms over 364ha, with 650 head dairy herd. They have invested more than $400,000 in on-farm irrigation modernisation with pivot sprays and on-farm automation through an automated system which Mr Mezenberg operates from the family computer or an iPad.

The awards were held at the RACV Club in Melbourne recently.

SRW managing director Clinton Rodda was delighted with the results and praised the efforts of all prize-winners and participants whose innovative practices show a focus on sustainable use of valuable water resources.

“Congratulations to all the winners and runners-up for their willingness to try new things to create strong businesses with best practice use of their water resources,” he said.

Sustainable outlook: Adam Schreurs on his family’s Middle Tarwin vegetable property where extensive surface water improvements have been made.

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Posted by brad on Nov 21 2018. Filed under Rural News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry