Unpowered Measured Irrigation Controller
Universal Measured Irrigation Controller
The Measured Irrigation Story
Measured irrigation was invented by Dr Bernie Omodei in late 2010.
The first measured irrigation installation worldwide was at the Fern Ave Community Garden in the City of Unley, Adelaide, in August 2011. The second installation was at the Prospect Community Garden in the City of Prospect, also in Adelaide, in November 2011.
In 2012, Dr Omodei supervised the masters project of Jeet Chand from Nepal. Jeet was a student at the University of South Australia doing a Masters of Water Resource Management. The title of his project is "Assessment and Evaluation of Measured Irrigation System".
In June 2012, Bernie gave a presentation on Measured Irrigation at the ICID & Irrigation Australia Conference in Adelaide.
In December 2012, Bernie presented a research paper at the Fourth International Conference on Sustainable Irrigation and Drainage in Adelaide. The title of the paper is "Measured irrigation: a significant development in water efficient irrigation".
In December 2014, a seminal paper on Measured Irrigation was published in Irrigation Science, an international peer review journal. The title of the paper is
“Accuracy and uniformity of a gravity-feed method of irrigation”.
Bernie was invited to give a presentation on Measured Irrigation at the International Symposium on Rainwater Harvesting in Addis Ababa, Ethopia, June 2015. Below is the link to the symposium proceedings:
http://www.rainfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Proceedings_Final.pdf
Many of the contacts made at this symposium were the foundation for ongoing engagement with development organisations and key individuals in Africa.
IAL Conference, Sydney 2018
“Sweat is Sweet” group examining Alphonse’s evaporator on his farm in Machakos, Kenya
Training workshop in Machakos Kenya
International Conference on Agriculture & Horticulture, Beijing 2015
Bernie was a Keynote Speaker at the 4th International Conference on Agriculture and Horticulture in Horticulture in Beijing, 13th to 15th July 2015. The title of his address was "Measured Irrigation - Improving the water-efficiency of irrigation by changing the irrigation paradigm". You may wish to watch a video of Dr Omodei's keynote address.
The April 2016 issue of ReNew magazine has a feature article on measured irrigation. ReNew is the quarterly magazine of the Alternative Technology Association. The title of the article is
"Drop by drop - measuring it out".
In October 2016, Bernie was invited to Kenya by Malesu Maimbo and Alex Oduor from ICRAF (World Agroforestry Centre) to participate in a workshop in Machakos County to train farmers and extension workers. The workshop was organised by the Billion Dollar Business Alliance for Rainwater Harvesting, whereby thousands of farm ponds will be installed in the drylands of Africa. Bernie demonstrated how to upgrade gravity feed drip irrigation to measured irrigation using an evaporator and a steel pipe.
A chapter on measured irrigation was published in December 2016 in the book Potential Use of Solar Energy and Emerging Technologies in Micro Irrigation, Apple Academic Press,
Editors: Megh R. Goyal, PhD, PE, Manoj K. Ghosal, PhD.
The title of the chapter is "Gravity-Feed Drip Irrigation for Agricultural Crops" by Bernard Omodei and Richard Koech.
In December 2017, Dr Rob Kelly form World Vision Australia released an article and photos endorsing the Automation Kit for Farm Pond Irrigation for farmers in Kenya:
Game-changing technology for dryland farmers in
eastern Kenya.
In January 2018, three kits were sent to IDE Mozambique.
In June 2018, four additional kits were sent to DryDev in Kenya.
In June 2018, Bernie gave a presentation on Measured Irrigation at the Irrigation Australia International Conference at the Sydney International Convention Centre. The title of the presentation was "Recent developments in measured irrigation, a new irrigation scheduling paradigm".
In October 2018, Bernie was invited to Hyderabad as a Keynote Speaker at Agritex, an International Agriculture Conference. The topic of the presentation was "Unpowered Measured Irrigation Controller".
In September 2019, Unpowered Evaporative Valve was accepted by the Expert Panel for the
Smart Approved WaterMark.
In July 2021, Bernie Omodei invented the Unpowered Irrigation Controller, the Terracotta Irrigation Controller for Solenoid Valves and the Terracotta Irrigation Comtroller for Latching Solenoids.
In May 2023, the Handbook of Irrigation Hydrology and Management was published. Chapter 8 in Volume 2 (Measured Irrigation) is written by Dr Omodei.
Further developments will be posted.
Agritex, Hyderabad 2018
