When Complete Irrigation Solutions (CIS) won the tender to supply and install an irrigation  system for Battunga Orchards, they knew it was going to be a challenge. The 123 hectare (300 acre) apple orchard was located in difficult topography and the installation team had only 12 weeks to complete the job.

CIS were contracted to provide all labour, materials and pumps for the project. With six installers dedicated to the project, the team had the task of installing 13 kilometers of mainline to 140 kilometers of pipe, 47,000 Plastro Ray Jet sprinklers, 73 Bermad valves of differing types and two Grundfos CR64-4 22kw pumps.

CIS Managing Director, Darren Lee said, “There’s no doubt it was a big project, but we knew with our previous experience on projects this size that we could deliver it. What also made the project  challenging was the slopes we had to deal with and how this affected the performance of the pipe and pump design.”

Utilising GPS excavation technology, CIS was able to excavate the trenches with extreme precision on the steep slopes of Battunga Orchards. The use of this technology gave the installation team the confidence in excavating the steep slopes without the need of wasting time and labour by triple checking their work.

The Battunga Orchards irrigation system was successfully installed within their 12 week window and more importantly for the client, within budget.

“We have been doing this type of work for over 30 years so we bring a lot of experience to any project, but you never stop learning, and we learnt a lot from this job that we can take to the next one ”, Darren Lee said.