FOR three years, Terry Cliff was making five trips a day in summer carting water for cattle.

Now, thanks to water faming, he has enough water in his dam for the next two years, even if he doesn't get any more rain.

    AT A GLANCE
  • Who: Terry Cliff
  • What: water farming
  • Why: filling dams
  • Where: Geelong, Victoria
  • Report: GAIL THOMAS

Water farming uses a roaded or graded catchment to harvest rainfall and direct it into storage. It is a well-established technique in Western Australia.

Terry runs 90 Belted Galloway cattle on 62ha at Bellbrae, near Geelong.

"I was doing 120km a day carting water and the hours were just prohibitive," Terry said.

"A friend near Maryborough solved his problems by trying roaded catchments after hearing about the concept from a relation in WA.

"I was desperate. I couldn't afford to keep carting water."

Terry approached earthmoving contractor Peter Beanland, of Rural Services in Geelong, who designed the layout using information from the West Australian Department of Agriculture website. Terry's two dams each contained less than a metre of water when the project began.

"The dam with the roading now has about 4m of water in it, compared with just 40cm in the other dam (which is slightly bigger)," he said.

"Basically, the past few years have been uniform (in rainfall) and when you look at other dams in the area that haven't got immediate run-off, and are stuck in the middle of a paddock, they virtually don't have any water."

Peter said he followed the basic guidelines from the West Australian agriculture department.

"I have constructed two bays over a 6000 square metre area using a grader and free-wheel roller," he said.

"To the best of my knowledge no approval was needed as this dam is not on a watercourse and was already established."

Peter said the tricky part of the process was dealing with the different depths of top soil - which were 60cm in some parts but only 15cm in others - and the need to mix it with clay.

"Soil with clay in it will run water where topsoil won't," he said.

"We are seeing run-off after 10mm (of rain) and you won't get that on a paddock."

Peter said it was critical to get the gradients at the right angle so the water flowed gently.

"If the water runs too fast it will furrow and if the gradient is too steep you won't be able to do maintenance," he said.

Peter said he was a bit sceptical about the method at first as it sounded too good to be true, but seeing the results he is now a convert.

"I was amazed at how the dam filled up on three lots of 10-15mm of rain," he said.

Terry is also thrilled with results as he has ample water for his stock and a large domestic orchard, which has not been watered for five or six years.

"I went down when we got 18mm of rain and the water was flowing in. I could not believe it," he said.

As for the outlay, Terry said it would cost "a few thousand dollars" depending on the terrain, the area and how much soil had to be moved.

The West Australian Department of Agriculture says well-constructed and maintained roaded catchments in suitable soil types can to begin to shed water after only 4-6mm of rain.

However, they need regular maintenance to maintain run-off efficiency and control erosion and weeds.