IRRIGATION DEBATE! Drippers Vs Sprayers

[Sunfire]

Lol I know everything your talking about and it still sounds kinda confusing lol.

Best advice there I think was read the diagram. Read the manuals too. Every well and farm is different. I'm sure in one day of online research one could figure out how best to irrigate their garden with the means and time they had available to do so.

 

[Backyard Farmer]

That's what I mean..Just do a little research in to what controller you want to use...Irritrol? Galcon? There's a few other brands too.

You can get a Galcon GSI with 12V valves and run it all off your i phone..Plumbing it is super easy..Use 2 clamps and don't over tighten.

make sure you leave yourself a low point to drain it all out from if you so choose to

 

[FarmTough]

Thanks for sharing. About to get some drip coils for our 800 go smart pots. We laid out a normal hose about 12" apart an got 63 ft. Now I'm thinking we should up it to 100+ Ft
Had the drip tape last year, John deer product t--tape that worked really well for rows. like mentioned before hand watering in the beginning is a must. one draw back with that is it is thin plastic. Our chickens would scratch at it rip it up. Lizards would bite it an put holes in it, wild birds peck at it.

 

[Sunfire]

The flat style soaker hoses are cheap and work great. They handle higher pressures too.

I have 800 gallon pots too. 125 feet of flat hose gives me 5" spacing on the coils. Put the 50 foot section on first on the inside and use that until the plant gets bigger and then add the 75 foot section on the outside. I don't use timers or filters. I use an intermittent water cycle between the 6 rows which I treat as zones. 10 minutes per each row. So that's 10 on and 50 off every hour. I just set a timer on my phone and every ten minutes go switch the appropriate valves on or off. It takes about 4-6 cycles to get a decent amount of run off but I don't like wasting water or ammendments so I just get a noticeable amount of run off and stop.

The intermittent water cycle allows for better penetration by allowing some time for the water to wick between each cycle. This also minimizes run off as opposed to just leaving the hoses on for an hour straight so the water doesn't just follow the path of least resistance and run straight out.

 

[PauliBhoy]

Almost all of the information in this thread is useless since no one has bothered to indicate what kind of soil they have, whether they're using surface or buried drip, whether or not they're using any kind of mulch, etc.

Please include these details when commenting on this subject or you're just wasting your time as well as everyone else's. It would also be helpful to indicate whether you're providing nearly all of a crop's water needs with your irrigation system or merely supplementing rainfall!

Cheers

 

[mk6]

I made my own halos, diy cost about 50cents each maybe less, home cheapo for the tube an your local hp store for the "T"
poke your own holes and I made a wire loop to hold them up.

these are in 25, 50, and 100 gal softpots, timers are set at 3, 5, 10 min,
depends on pot size an plant, an I fed them 3 times a day, soil is a growers mix. extremely effective .

 

[HillMizer]

I use Jaine DAN modular sprayers. 6 per 8' mound seems great. They're hard to order so I get em from Wyatt in Ukiah because they work with them all the time. Orange concave spreader and grey nozzles. I like the way the entire surface gets wet and topdresses get watered in. I can fertigate kelp and humate through them, easy to clean if they plug and you can literally hear it.when there is a problem.
I use them in greenhouses, they never caused me rot nor mold ever. Install time for for 130 plants in greenhouse is about how long it'd take to handwater them.
Emitter tubing is tedious for me. The rats always eat it, I aways flush it and soak it to remove minerals. Spending hours and hours bent over installing it. I find irrgation staples everywhere and they fuck up the tiller. Yep no thanks.

 

[Valley Mike]

I've had problems with dry spots and clogging with drippers the dry spots were more of a prob tbh .. I've been looking at different micro sprayers and may give them a try inside gh

 

[jtk707]

Drip is simple . Sprays waste water to evaporation . Drip for the win IMO