Drip irrigation for containers - Brainstorming...

9 years ago

Hey everyone,

I'm trying to come up with an efficient way to water 10-15 gallon pots with a single drip emitter. I've found that a single emitter in the center of a 10 gallon pot leaves much of the soil dry as the water sinks down and wets a cone-shaped volume of soil. I also know that I don't have enough water pressure/flow to start doubling/tripling the number of emitters per pot...

Has anyone tried laying down a layer of burlap or other cloth on top of the soil to help the water wick out evenly over the soil surface instead of sinking down so quickly? It seems like this might be a way to get full, even coverage from a single emitter, but I could be wrong...

Any other suggestions for watering 10+ gallon pots with a single 0.5-1 gph emitter?

Thanks!

Alex

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Comments (5)

renais1
9 years ago
I use the splitters that attach to the output of the drip emitter (I'm using netafin from Dripworks). These splitters allow you to split the water flow to 4 or 8 locations in the pot. They do a great job of making sure everything is moist.
Renais
nil13
9 years ago
Assuming you can't increase the number drippers, I would make a reservoir with tiny holes in the bottom. The reservoir is filled with the single dripper and then slowly leaks out into the pot. Depending on how much water we are talking about that reservoir could be a PVC pipe ring.
AlexInAlbany
Original Author
9 years ago
Both great suggestions! Thanks!

That Netafim splitter definitely looks like it could do the trick. Do those 4-way splitters actually seem to split the flow evenly among the 4 tubes? And do they need to be oriented flat? My emitters would be on the end of 1/4" leads, not stuck directly into the top of the main line, so they'd be laying flat.

The reservoir idea is pretty clever as well. I might play around with some PVC and a drill this evening to see how it works.

Does anyone out there use coils/rings of soaker hose for container plants? I don't have much experience with the stuff, but have read mixed reviews... At 0.4 gph per linear foot, I could easily get away with 1-2 feet of soaker per pot. I just don't know how consistent that stuff is... Not sure each 1 foot section will give the same flow rate as the next...

Thanks again for the suggestions!
AlexInAlbany
Original Author
9 years ago
I went ahead and ordered a few sets of Netafim pressure compensating emitters, each one split to 4 dripper stakes.

These ones:
https://www.berryhilldrip.com/product.php?productid=10030

Now I just hope that my water source has enough "oomph" to operate six 2-gph pressure compensating emitters. I'm sourcing my water directly from the output of a HydroLogic Small Boy filter (with the upgraded carbon - removes chloramine). The filter puts out about a gallon per minute unrestricted, so in theory it has a high enough flow rate, I just don't know if it'll build up enough pressure on the output side to operate all 6 pressure compensating emitters. I currently have it hooked to six 0.5-gph pressure compensating emitters and it's working just fine. We shall see..

Thanks again, folks!

-Alex
AlexInAlbany
Original Author
9 years ago
Double post... My bad.

This post was edited by AlexInAlbany on Wed, Aug 27, 14 at 18:13