Golbourn VIC Channels - NSF effect?

[gwmbox]

Here is a question I have received from the Mrs

A fellow horse person has a property in Victoria in the Goldbourn area and they apparently have access to water through a channel from the river to water their property etc. The property has apparently been leveled to take full advantage of this process (laser level is what we have been told)... They are also restricted on how much water they can use and are not able to use sprinklers - they flood their paddocks instead... seems a bit odd to me.

Anyway the Mrs asked what effect this would have in relation to NSF, I was stumped being new to this so hence my post here. From what I see the water would be going in reverse, that is being channelled from the river rather than to the river?

Does anyone know anything about this and can provide their thoughts on this process, or maybe someone that has been or is living in the Golbourn area can make a comment - be interesting to know

Cheers

Greg

[Stringybark]

Do you want to know about flood irrigation and how it works?
Or just what effect it has in the bigger picture, NSF wise?

[matto]

From my limited research, short term flood irrigation is beneficial for soil microbes. Quick flood irrigation of around an hour will not suffocate the microbes as does slower border check irrigation and, possibly ,spray irrigation.

Was this possibly a Keyline plan?

[Julian]

Flood irrigation is not a sustainable way to farm. This is partly what has got us into this mess and destroying the Murray/Darling basin and others. Water needs to be regularly pumped out of the river and into channels to get to the paddock, losing a lot in evaporation along the way. This leaves those downstream up the creek shall we say.
Peter describes that the Natural Sequence did this flood irrigation itself, but in a more sustainable way with water flooding out of the river when there is an excess and then stored in the ground. Its all in the book.