The 2022 heatwave underlined the pressure on water supplies at Wallog which led Dai Evershed, who runs the farm alongside his father, Jack, in tandem with his work at the Institute of Biological,Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS), to consider the farm's water efficiency.
The struggle to ensure continued supply of drinking water for livestock led David to start looking at ways of saving water where possible and to use it more efficiently as it is moved around the farm.
He hopes the efficiency will come from reducing electricity usage; electric pumps are used
to move water from wells to reservoirs before it is gravity fed to where it is needed. By pumping only exactly what is needed, and by detecting leaks and problems as soon as
they happen, it should be possible to achieve this reduction in electricity usage.
With support from his colleague, Jason Brook, Dai secured a 40% funded Welsh Government grant to invest in a LoRaWAN gateway and five sensors, to monitor water and energy use, and to detect and stop leaks at the earliest opportunity.
The project looks at monitoring water levels at different reservoirs alongside flow rates of water and that information is being used to inform decisions on when pumping is necessary. The system is being designed so that it is fit for the future, with the end goal of automating water pumping and utilising energy produced by recently installed photovoltaic (PV) panels, and which can act as a blueprint for other farms.
Water availability is currently a major barrier to the farm being able to transition into a
rotational grazing system. If they are successful in establishing the system David will then look to set up a rotational grazing system, which is currently being designed in cooperation with Precision Grazing, through the Farming Connect Advisory Service.
The main water supply routes, wells and reservoirs can be seen in figure 1
Figure 1. Map showing location of main water supply routes, wells and reservoirs
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