The area around Cudal, west of Orange, has salt and calcium-rich spring and bore water which restricts the growth of garden plants and lawn, and neighbours are surprised to see such rapid garden establishment in their midst.

David says some asked if he’d been taking all the water from the nearby creek, knowing his salty bore and spring water supplies couldn’t produce those results. He simply laughed and told them it was his “secret weapon” but the level of interest meant it was impossible to keep it a secret.

David has installed signs on his property entrance gates so everyone knows he’s using a DELTAwater solutions water treatment system on supplies to his and his parents’ gardens and nearby cattle troughs on the property.

He says after installing the environmentally friendly Australian system, which requires no power or maintenance, their gardens have thrived. The nearby cattle water troughs have benefitted from the system as well, now having less algae build-up around the float valve.

“The lawns are happy, the plants are happy – everything, from the sensitive plants like roses, bulbs and lavenders and everything in between,” he says. “Because of the results, I’ve had the confidence to establish a whole a new garden area. This new area has grown so vigorously that you don’t even realise it’s a new garden.

“I certainly recommend DELTAwater solutions to others – their system has done wonders for our garden.”

Alex and Dianne Panov, who both grew up on the land and had agricultural-based careers, founded DELTAwater more than 25 years ago to address common water quality problems such as salinity, scale, iron and corrosion.

With a practical nature and hands-on experience adapting and improving agricultural equipment, Alex’s early development of the DELTA technology was inspired by seeing the impact poor quality water had on the agricultural industry. With no environmentally-friendly, high quality practical solution on the Australian market, he set about designing and manufacturing a solution.

David came across DELTAwater solutions via his long-time pumps and irrigation agent Keith Sproule from Midwest Irrigation. He wanted to address the problems his salty bore and spring water were causing, such as coating his plants with a white film of dehydrated salt and stunting plant and lawn growth.

“We were really struggling with our water which was coating our whole garden in a white film, and we could clearly see our plants and lawn were not growing to their full potential. The garden was struggling, the lawn was struggling and as passionate hobby gardeners, we were struggling too,” he says.

David says getting DELTAwater solutions to test his water first and gain a thorough understanding of the problems was invaluable. Water tests of the bore discovered medium Class 2 salinity, extreme hardness and high alkalinity. At these levels they were causing scale in pipes, fittings, drippers, sprays and other irrigation systems. DELTA also tested David’s spring/dam water, finding high Class 3 salinity, high chloride and extreme hardness.

He says they also understood the configuration of his pumps, tanks, pipes, dam and bore, and could make product recommendations to suit.

“Taking the time to look into our water problem carefully before recommending a product has made all the difference. We have two units, and because they understood the configuration of our pipes and pumps they were able to recommend a product for my garden and a different one for my parents’ garden. Within a really short time of adopting the system, we had a really quick result.”

DELTAwater solutions is an award-winning manufacturing water treatment company based in Newcastle. They will return to Ag Quip this year to Site D27/b. They will be offering free basic water tests and encourage people to bring their samples along for testing.