Robotic Dairy

milk from land and water

Did you know that a cow can produce between 7,000 and 10,000 litres of milk in a year?

To do this the cow will need a good supplies of food and water, and it is the farmers job to ensure that the cows needs are provided in a sustainable way.

On our farm in the Macalister Irrigation District, Central Gippsland, Victoria, Australia, we rely on water stored in dams on two local rivers. The upper catchment of the Thomson river is dammed primarily to provide domestic water to Melbourne. Lake Glenmaggie on the lower catchment of the Macalister River provides irrigation water to farms and domestic water to towns in the district.

Water is delivered to our farm via an open channel system, and is metered through a Dethridge Wheel into our farm distribution channels. The water is carefully flowed across the pastures, this is called flood irrigation.

This view of our farm shows the water direction flows for pastures, note the effluent pond in the bottom right. Waste water from the dairy is settled in this pond then pumped back into the farm channel system for the pastures.

Seeing the importance of water in the food production chain can be fun, lets look at the different ways water is used in milk production on a farm. CLICK HERE FOR MORE.