Matthew Champness

I have a background in farming systems currently working as an irrigation specialist. I have worked on innovative local scale agronomy projects in southeast Asia, which focus strongly on capacity building and extension activities for smallholder farmers. My PhD focused on identification of in-field and remote sensed irrigation thresholds in water-saving non-flooded aerobic rice and the influence on yield, quality and GHG emissions of various agronomic & crop nutrition decisions to optimise aerobic rice production in southern Australia. This research worked closely with key commercial providers to develop and refine automated gravity surface irrigation systems to enable aerobic rice production for the first time at commercial scale. This research also investigated the social and economic implications of adoption of automated irrigation technologies