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mastergardenator

Drip tape

mastergardenator
13 years ago

Hello!

I just took a little workshop about irrigation and was thinking about switching my flood irrigation garden to a drip tape one


now i was wondering what spacing of holes should i get?

the guy who was teaching the class said the best for gardens is 2 inches apart but i can't find any less than 8 inches

is 8 inches to far apart?

and if not can i use a needle to poke holes every 2 inches in the drip tape?

Comments (6)

  • lehua49
    13 years ago

    Mastergardener

    Your name implies your are knowledgeable about plant physiology. Irrigation is only a distribution method to give one aspect of what the plant needs, water. Why would you want to change methods assuming you are a successful greenthumberator? Drip is more efficient but more problematic and costly. I kinda like flood irrigation. No wetting patterns to fret about. No wondering if the system is distributing evenly and no wondering what the spacing should be. How about 1/2 the spacing of your plantings if your soil is not to porous. What tape are you thinking of using and what is the flow rate and spacing of the tape? The big factors are soil type(wetting pattern) and amount of water the plant needs at certain time in its growth cycle(root ball size). Flood is much simpler. I guess I didn't answer your specific question. What ever you do do not poke holes in the tape. JMHO Aloha

  • mastergardenator
    Original Author
    13 years ago

    well I don't know everything :D
    and what I don't know I ask here!

    I want to change becuase its more eco friendly by not wasting most of the water to evaporation and also in the long run it will save me money

    I have no idea what brand or flow rate im am going to get so what do you suggest?
    I have sandy clay for soil.


  • lehua49
    13 years ago

    MGator,

    Lets start with source flow rate. What will your water source be? Well or municipal water? Can you take water off from the house's hose faucet this will be lower pressure and then for drip you can easily lower the pressure even more. Measure your faucet water by filling a 5-gallon bucket and timing the fill. Do it several times and post the average time here to fill here.

    Then how big a garden are you planning to irrigate and how much water do you think you need per day or per week to meet the needs of mature plants? What types of plants are you intending to grow and what is their spacing between plants and between rows? Would you be able to post a layout drawing with dimensions on this thread?

    Check out the local irrigation supply, box and landscaping stores and record the Brand, price, type, flow ratings, length and spacings of different drip tapes. Let us know this here and other can comment on your list as well.

    And you thought it would be easy. It actually is when you have gathered the data and made a plan. Aloha

  • mastergardenator
    Original Author
    13 years ago

    i have two hoses from water spickets running over to my garden
    municipal water
    they get a little under 10 gallons per minute
    32' by 32'
    right now im flooding it once a day
    just about everything that isn't a cool weather crop
    its veritable carrots like 3 inches apart all the way to watermelon which is 4-5 feet apart

    each row is about one foot apart
    no dimensions
    but i have an overview photo of it!

    http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs093.snc1/4679_1065247643586_1597879937_30180460_1143472_n.jpg

    i will let you know what i find
    but i have already looked in the home depot and all they have was drip hose but that was like 30cents per foot verse the 7cents per foot for drip tape online that i found

    here it is http://www.dripirrigation.com/drip_irrigation_info.php?cPath=121&products_id=280&osCsid=2nujdeo2jlqe1nqejlm1h0dph6

    oh yeah feel free to call me jeff!

  • lehua49
    13 years ago

    Jeff,

    Do you get 9.99 gpm from each hose with both running at the same time or did you measure each separately (important)? How was the flow measured?

    You have 12 furrows each 32 lf which equals 394 lf of tape. The tape generates a flow rate of 0.6 gph(0.01 gpm) per foot @20 psi. That means every row puts out .32 gpm per row x 12 rows = 3.84 gpm. You could run your whole plot on one zone or in essence you would only need a battery operated timer instead of a wired controller. The only thing next is to figure out how long you leave your system on to get water to your plant's root systems. You appear to have sandy soil so this may be a problem for 12" hole spacing. This is where trial and error comes in.
    Before planting any plants experiment with duration time for irrigation and explore how well the water travel through the soil. The more sandy the less sideways travel(Drip efficiency goes down) so the water has to be left on longer and need to come out faster to get farther(mature roots for tomatoes are two feet radius from the plant stem). Buy the tape then set up your system and see what happens. You are only out 35 bucks if you find out you need closer spacing and higher flow. With your soil, maybe flood irrigation is about the best you can do and drip may be more expensive and not be able to give your plants the water it needs when their more mature. Online stuff is cheaper but hard to return if it is defective. At least buy American Made Products if you have a choice.

    Do you need advice on system fittings and set up at this point?

    By this time next year, you will be helping other here getting started in drip or tell them forget it.

    JMHO, Aloha

  • azirrigation_guy
    13 years ago

    Jeff

    PSI and GPM are good things to understand, did I say good I mean very important.

    However, I am just going to talk about your original question in regards to 8 inch separation. In AZ (Phoenix) we do just fine with 8 inch separation because the water will spread out due to our soil being so high in clay, resulting in a slow infiltration rate which makes our water spread.

    Remember your drip is based on hours not minutes, so when you run a system in grid form for an hour it gets very good water uniformity. IF you want 2 inch separation then yes you will have to make your own holes and that means you need to find the type of tape that has no emitters. By the way, I have seen drip tape with 4 inch separation line, talk to the guys at Ewing.

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