The Department of Primary Industries and Regions (PIRSA) needs your help to stop fruit fly spreading and their series continues into winter, with July being Jams, Preserves and Baking month!

Put your chef’s hat on and cook up a storm with your excess fruit at home.

If you live in a fruit fly red outbreak area, once purchased or picked, you can’t move or share fruit and vegetables that are at risk from fruit fly with your family, friends or neighbours. But you can cook them and then share your delightful creations!

If you’ve got a heap of winter fruit in your garden, pick it off the trees and collect it off the ground. The goal is to remove fruit so it’s not available to fruit fly over winter and into the spring. Make sure unwanted fruit is going into your green bin, not your compost.

Get your bake on to use up excess produce, here are some ideas:

• bake a fruit-based cheesecake
• bake a fruit pie
• bake a fruit tart (remember to cook it)
• make lemon curd (use as a spread or in a lemon meringue pie)
• make a fruit jam or jelly
• make a fruit paste (e.g. quince)
• make citrus marmalade
• make preserved lemons.

Get your jam on – if your fruit bowl is chock full, use up your fruit.

For recipes and ideas, follow Primary Industries and Regions SA on Facebook

The latest announcement  from the Department of Environment and Water on June 15 has given RIT irrigators confidence about the new season.  From July 1, the water allocation will be 100 percent.

There will be no carryover of water into the new water year (2021-2022) as the projected minimum allocation announced on 15 April was greater than 50 percent.

For more information please see the announcement on the DEW website here 

The Department of Primary Industries and Regions (PIRSA) is responding to fruit fly outbreaks in the Riverland in Renmark West, Monash, Berri, Pike River and Cooltong.

To boost the eradication strategy, PIRSA is offering alternative control strategies to landholders within red outbreak areas.

If you’re within a red outbreak area, these strategies may impact the management of fruit fly on your property and require a discussion with one of our staff to work through how they can be best applied.

Please contact PIRSA as soon as possible so we can get your details to enable our staff to book at time to discuss the options for your property and work through the best option for you.

What you need to do

1. Check if you are in a red outbreak area
2. Call PIRSA’s industry hotline on 1800 255 556 or email PIRSA.RiverlandFFProgram@sa.gov.au

PIRSA will take your details to enable their staff to book a time to meet with you and discuss the options for your property.

More information about the outbreaks
Visit fruitfly.sa.gov.au

Water supply to all RIT customers between Cucumunga Street and Twentyeighth Street (refer to map) will cease from 9.00am Wednesday 12 May 2021 until Midnight Thursday 13 May 2021 for staff to undertake emergency infrastructure repairs.

This shutdown is in relation to the supply disruption affecting the Crescent area.  We apologise for any inconvenience caused by these unexpected circumstances.

The Trust is pleased to notify our Member and stakeholder base that Renmark Irrigation Trust is undertaking its Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) recertification audit on Tuesday 6 April 2021. This occurs every three years and is part of the Trust’s certification requirements under the AWS International Standard.

The latest version of the Trust’s Water Stewardship Plan, adopted by the Trust Board at the recent Trust Board Meeting on Monday 29 March is available on the Trust website here. This ever-evolving document helps collate information relevant to water stewardship and reflects a number of Trust activities to date. It is also intended to help guide the Trust’s activities in certain water related areas.

As a valued stakeholder/partner of the Trust, the Trust wishes to both notify you that we are excited to complete our recertification audit and (hopefully!) maintain our platinum certification, the highest certification level under the AWS Standard, as well as invite you to provide any thoughts/comments on the Trust’s performance as a water steward of the local area to date.

Please feel free to contact James John via email on jjohn@rit.org.au or on (08) 8586 6911 with any queries on the Trust’s Water Stewardship plan or activities.

Please see the below invitation from the MDBA/DEW for an upcoming information session, specifically tailored for Renmark Irrigation Trust Members – Please RSVP to the Trust Office by calling (08) 8586 6911 or by emailing office@rit.org.au:

Invitation to Members for information session 3pm, Thursday 25 February at the Renmark Hotel – Managing Deliverability Risks in the River Murray System (RSVP requested)If you have pondered about the impact of such things as the Barmah choke restriction and irrigation expansion on our water security, this is an opportunity to hear from people who have been on a fact finding mission. The Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) and the South Australian Department for Environment and Water (DEW) invites you to an engagement session at the Renmark Hotel on Thursday 25 February 2021 from 3.00pm – 5.00pm on the recently released ‘Managing Deliverability Risks in the River Murray System’ paper.

Delivering water in the River Murray system has always been challenging due to the long distances between key water storages and major extraction points. River operators rely on weather forecasts and an extensive network of infrastructure. It takes around four weeks to deliver water from Hume Dam to the South Australian border and conditions can change quickly. A “delivery shortfall” event may occur when demands for water exceed those anticipated when releases were made from upstream storages several weeks earlier, and there is insufficient water in transit to meet all demands. The risk of a delivery shortfall is greater during summer when spikes in temperature may result in a sudden increase in river losses and irrigation demands. Over the past fifteen years, there has been growing concern within communities and governments that, over time, the risk of a delivery shortfall has increased. This issue is being talked about more and more and there is widespread concern and uncertainty. For this reason, the MDBA commissioned a series of investigations to better understand the shortfall risk. The Delivery Risks paper summarises and brings together the broad range of studies. It also presents objectives and principles to guide changes required and sets out actions to establish a functional delivery framework. It proposes exploring long-term options for restoring delivery capacity in the lower Murray system – to understand effectiveness, costs, impacts and beneficiaries.

The session will be an opportunity to:
• receive an overview of the key drivers of shortfall risk and recap on the land and water use changes over the past 25 years
• discuss the actions being taken by governments to develop a more robust delivery framework, including shortfall response planning
• learn about the potential SA response should a delivery shortfall occur
• talk about the long-term measures being explored for increasing delivery capacity
• ask questions and contribute your perspective, and
• explore how we can work together to effectively manage and mitigate risks in the River Murray system.

Venue: Renmark Hotel 3.00pm – 5.00pm
Industry Members
Group Presenters:
• Dr Joseph Davis – MDBA, Senior Director River Modernisation
• Dr Ben Dyer – MDBA, Director System Review
• Dr Theresa Heneker – SA DEW, Principal Policy Officer, Basin Plan Strategy and Implementation

For COVID management purposes, please RSVP to RIT (8586 6911 or office@rit.org.au) by close of business Monday 22 February 2021.

Please be advised that water supply has now resumed in the area bordered by Ontario, Kulkyne, Chino and Chowilla Streets and 60 Foot Road.

Please see following information from Riverland Wine regarding two upcoming briefing sessions to be held this Thursday, 7 January. Please share this information within your networks where relevant:

Due to the fruit fly outbreak, winegrape properties within prescribed zones will have protocols applied to movements of winegrapes to wineries as soon as harvest commences. The period of restricted movements will apply until late March 2021, covering much of the forthcoming harvest period.Two briefing sessions for winegrape growers and wineries to explain protocols and paperwork will be convened at Barmera and Renmark.

• Barmera Football Club: Thursday, January 7 at 9:30am
• Renmark Hotel Function Room: Thursday, January 7 at 1:30pm

The following important information has been provided by the Department of Primary Industries and Regions SA (PIRSA) – please share this information with any growers or industry participants in your network that may be affected by the fruit fly outbreak:

“A fruit fly outbreak grower and industry information meeting will be held in the Function Room of the Renmark Hotel on Monday 4 January 2021, at 11am.

The meeting will provide information on the outbreak operation and what has been done to date, activities going forward, and most importantly – market access.

PIRSA staff will be presenting and assist in addressing the many issues around market access.All growers and affected industries are strongly urged to attend.”