1. Introduction
Irrigation scheduling Decision Support Systems (DSS) have experienced
poor uptake amongst irrigators in Australia despite much
investment and well publicised objective evidence that they can increase
water use efficiency. For example, WaterSense, a sugarcane
irrigation scheduling DSS with proven ability to increase water
use efficiency (Inman-Bamber et al., 2005) has fewer than a hundred
users among a potential pool of thousands. Australia-wide, a 2005
survey of irrigation DSS found that 21 are in operation but most
have only a dozen or fewer users (Inman-Bamber and Attard, 2005).
A survey by Olivier and Singels (2004) of the reasons for not
adopting scientific irrigation scheduling techniques by South
African irrigators identified two main barriers to adoption. The first
was the complexity of use and hence the difficulty of applying
them to farm practice and the second was whether their use would
actually translate into benefits. Much work in Australia on barriers
to DSS adoption (Carberry, 2001; McCown et al., 2006) notes a ‘gap’
between scientific and industry approaches to scheduling that supports
the South Africa experience.