The North Otago Irrigation Company's $57 million expansion down the Kakanui Valley is well under way.
Last month, McConnell Dowell Constructors crews began laying the main line - 1.2m-diameter reinforced fibreglass pipes - that will stretch towards Herbert.
The company almost tripled the size of the head pond on Ngapara-Georgetown Rd and upgraded pump stations over the winter.
The project was still on target for the September 2016 hook-up, company chairman Leigh Hamilton said.
''It's good,'' he said.
''I guess it's the culmination of nearly 10 years of getting that lined up to work. It takes a while to get all that together.
''When we did the infrastructure for stage 1 10 years ago, some of the infrastructure was sized for stage 2 already. To get the second bit under way has taken quite a while.''
The 8000-share, or up to 10,000ha, expansion meant that between the two schemes the company would be irrigating almost 25,000ha by next year, the irrigation company's chief executive Robyn Wells said.
''It is large-scale irrigation,'' she said.
''But I think the big thing about it is that it is all piped and pressurised.''
The scheme used eight ''massive ... million-dollar'' 3.2MW pumps.
''In terms of scale of those pumps, the size of them and the water they're pushing - all of that - it's pretty big.''
The Waitaki District Council granted the irrigation company a $17million loan to help fund the expansion.
Stage 2 is also being funded by farmers and a loan from ASB bank, which has been involved with the company from the start.
