A new water source has been developed just in time for growers in Western Australia's Carnarvon irrigation scheme.
Many of the region's fruit and veggie producers have been struggling since the Gascoyne River dried up last year and the bore they extract water from was declared too salty.
But this week, the second of nine proposed bores went online, in a plan that will eventually deliver an extra 100 litres per second to the irrigation scheme.
Darryl Butcher from the Gascoyne Water Co-operative says the grower controlled bores are a significant step in consolidating and eventually expanding the irrigation scheme.
"This is the first time that a collection of growers has identified a problem, and the problem was not enough infrastructure to deliver water, and then using their own funds have gone about solving the problem."
"This project will deliver a 30 per cent increase to peak flow within the irrigation scheme and that's not a fiddling at the edges outcome, that's a material increase in available water to all growers."
Mr Butcher says one or two bores will be brought online each week from now on, with all nine bores expected to be installed and operational by mid-December.
Local banana grower Bruce Munro, has recently had to stop watering parts of his plantation, but says the new bores are already making a difference.
"I turned the irrigation on at 11 o'clock last night and when I got up the tank was nearly full and we haven't seen anything close to that for two months or better," he says.
"These extra bores will get us back to where we can give everything the right amount of water."
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