WATER conservation is a key driver for David Blomfield, who started his working life in Grafton and returned to the region as the irrigation and project manager for Costa's berry farm at Corindi.

David, who grew up in Red Rock and went to school in South Grafton before playing with the Grafton Ghosts, worked as a plumber before heading to Sydney to do a civil engineering degree.

After completing his degree, David moved to Griffith where he ran an irrigation business for 20years.

"Water conservation is one of the biggest things I work on. Technology has a big part to play and there are lots of improvements we can make," David said.

"Irrigation scheduling has gone from the days when we used a manual ceramic tip in the soil to now where we have electronic beams that can tell us how moist the soil is."

Before moving back to the mid-north coast, David worked on a water conservation project on the Murray Darling Basin installing 5000 metering gates for water control and 3000 in-channel gates for maintaining water levels.

He has also worked with crops ranging from wine grapes, citrus, prunes, to almonds and olives, with a key focus on developing new ways to improve water and energy efficiency.

"My last design project was 800ha of wine grapes and we were able to halve the energy needed for pumping through the use of low-flow close-spacing dripline. There are great benefits for growers and also for the environment," he said.

David has now turned his attention to berries.

"Growing in substrate (pots) delivers water efficiencies and no wastage.

"My aim is also to train people up and teach them the theory of irrigation," he said.

And in his spare time, David is planning to develop a large-scale solar farm.

"The solar farm will be capable of supplying 25,000 homes with power, which is good for the environment, and the water collected on-site will be reused in greenhouses.

"The greenhouses also are capable of generating solar power as the roof panels allow light through for plant growth and generate power, which is exciting new technology," he said.