We work on a variety of Agricultural sites for our clients but this one proved to be very interesting as it is very different. There are a surprising number of Watercress farms in our region. You may have driven past one without giving it a second glance – they are virtually invisible to the passer-by, but behind the fences are huge lagoons with just a few cm of water in them where the crops are grown.

To promote healthy growth the water needs to be circulated, and so around the edge of the lagoons are a number of pump houses that pump water gently around the site to prevent stagnation.

On one of these farms our pump engineer was asked to fix an issue with groundwater from a local river which was entering the system and causing the pumps to over-work. Before we could specify the pump to resolve the issue we had to find out how much water needed to be removed, so we over-pumped from the sump through a meter to find out the volume and flows. With this information we could specify the correctly rated pump to remove the water efficiently.