Irrigation question

[JUDGE1162]

So I plan to plant a tree line and now have decided to install some irrigation.

I am cheap and I am not looking for an inground system, we are talking garden hose and sprinkler heads.

I am pretty sure I want to do impulse sprinklers in series, but I am open to other options too if you think there is some thing else I should look at

I am going to plant Norway spruce trees 2 rows staggered about 10 feet apart looking for a wind break/privacy screen.

So I will end up with 300 feet (750 feet total to do, but will do it over 3 years) of tree line to water, two rows of trees spaced ten feet apart.

My thought is impulse sprinkler set to semi-circle (say 3/4 or 2/3 of a circle) with a 50 foot diameter with sprinklers set 45 feet apart for a total of seven heads each with 50 feet of hose between them.

All sounds good but here is the big question:

How much water does a standard 50 foot diameter sprinkler use? And how much pressure does it need?

How much pressure and water would I need to be able to run 7 sprinkler heads?

Is there a better way of doing this?

I looked at soaker hose but everything I see says a max of 100 feet of soaker hose at which point all the water is gone.

I think a sprinkler hose would work great but again not sure if it would work for 300 feet, again not sure how much water does a standard sprinkler hose use (looking for 10 to 15 foot spay)? And how much pressure does it need?

Even if the sprinkler hose starts in the begining with 20 foot spray and the end only has 10 foot spray that would work, but I can't seem to find any data on them amout of water or water pressure needed to run a sprinkler hose.

Any help, ideas, are very welcome.

 

[berryman70]

irrigation

Hi, maybe I can answer some of your questions, I irrigate 2 acres of strawberries & 5 acres of sweetcorn with commercial overhead irrigation equipment. sprinkler heads can put 2 to 16 gal.per min out & even more on a big gun setup. even at 3 gpm & with 7 heads a 3/4" or 1" garden hose will not supply enough volume ,pressure wise you need around 50 psi at the head (the one farthest away) Also over head irrigation is not real efficient, there is a lot of loss to wind & evaporation.
I would recommend looking into a low volume drip setup where you'd be putting the water where it's needed, around the tree roots

btw I use 4" alluminum hook & latch pipe, set my heads at 40' x 60' have a tractor driven 40hp pump & 2 ponds on my farm.

I hope this helps some feel free to ask more

 

[M.D. Vaden]

Maybe you only need to water for a year or two to get them started.

Will they be mulched?

Growing in a field?

In lawn?

The pressure and gallons per minute, for the heads, totally depends on the head. But drip sounds like a better option.

 

[windthrown]

Use drip...

I have some orchards here that I have been putting in, and I use drip irrigation. 50-60 trees about 12 ft apart. I am setting up the same system for a vineyard that I am putting in with 300 pinot noir grapes spaced in rows 9 ft apart and at 6 ft intervals. Except in the vineyard the drip irrigation will only be for 3 years, then they will be dry farmed. I also use drip on my trellis berry vines in a 1/4 acre area, and on my blueberrries.

I also release the orchard trees, ala' the methods tought in ferestry tree-planting class. That requires clearing a 2 ft radius around the trees. I use Roundup for that. The idea there is that the grass will not steal the water that the trees need, so less water is needed. That also removes the hormones that grasses release to stunt plant growth under them (offensive plant strategy used by grasses to invade open areas).

Anyway, I would use drip. Sprinklers waste a lot of water where you do not need it. Drip is not that expensive to put in. Get a long coil of 1/2 or 5/8 inch poly pipe, and buy drip emitter plugs to stick into them where the trees are. Then get a hose adapter, filter, connectors for the long lengths, and pressure regulator if you have high presure (I have a spring on a gravity feed and do not use a regulator). You can also put in a hose timer or automatic sprinkler controler to time watering. Easy for long rows of trees, grapes, or other perennials. They last a long time (over 3 years so far here) and they (drip systems) really do work.

 

[NYCHA FORESTER]

I agree with a drip system (drip line/hose). Using a sprinkler type system can result in all sorts of Fungal and erosion problems.

 

[JUDGE1162]

Can someone point me to a good resource for drip irrigation, when I look on the web it seem like a lot more work and money then what I need but I am hoping people have links to more homeowner uses of drip and how to set it up

 

[NYCHA FORESTER]

http://www.doityourself.com/icat/driphoseandtube

You can do a google search to see if there is someone close to where you live and perhaps find better prices too

 

[windthrown]

Home Depot or Lowes

You can also go to Home Depot and look in their plumbing/irrigation section. They have a large section with drip that I used. They also have pamphlets that you can use to figure out what types of emmiters you need, and how to install them. Lowes has the same type of stuff.

 

[JUDGE1162]

Yeah that is what I ended up doing at least online, the dripline companies are great and offer huge roll of tubing but the shipping is insane so I looked at HD and lowes they have stuff but much smaller scale, I think I need to head to the store and see what they have, I really need 500 or 1000 foot rolls of tubing so far the best I see at HD is 100 foot which is very pricey especially for all the coupling if you need 1000 feet of tubing

But I think I got the main idea now thanks, it seem a lot simplier then it first seemed and a lot more cost effective especiallly if I can find big rolls of tubing locally

 

[windthrown]

ordering drip

You can usually order larger rolls of the larger drip rolls at the HW chain stores. Some have 1,000 ft rolls that you can cut to length. We also have a chain of HW stores here that have the larger rolls, as well as local wholesalesery supply places that have drip in any length that you want.

 

[sawyerDave]

Cheap irrigation

My grandfather planted a privet hedge using the cheapest irrigation system ever! He planted a bottomless 1or2 gallon bucket on the uphill side of each plant. Every morning before work, and again in the evening after work, he carried 2 -5 gallon buckets full of water, and poured each plant's bucket full. He didn't do the whole row every day, but every day he did 20 gallons worth!:yoyo: :yoyo: :yoyo:

 

[DGG]

Could you plant them in Sept. so they have a half year to grow when weather is cool. You will have spring thaw to water them.

Side question: Are they deer candy?

 

[JUDGE1162]

To answer a few questions

I plant to plant 50 to 60 plants and it is reccomended that each plant get about 5 to 10 gallons of water a week and I am only there on the weekends, so while the bucket idea seem pretty cool to hand carry 600 gallons of water over a 2 day periods is a bit too much work for me.

I could plant in the winter however I have been told that while the deer do leave the plants alone the rabbits and mice will eat them over the winter and that if I plant in the spring they should take hold by fall and make it through the winter.

That and most nurseys only ship spruce trees in the spring so due to supply in my area spring is the time to plant


I think I am going to do some sort of drip system just got to find the parts now

 

[windthrown]

Deer food

Could you plant them in Sept. so they have a half year to grow when weather is cool. You will have spring thaw to water them.

Side question: Are they deer candy?

I dunno about that part of the world, but here in the west this time of year is the tail end of the tree planting season. Basically becasue of the dormant season for most trees (including conifers) in during winter. We got out last trees into the ground a little over a week ago. Spring budding is happening now.

Deer here do not eat conifers (spruce, fir, pine, cedar) unless it is really dry or there is little else to eat. And now it is spring and the grasses are growing and that is their favorite food. That said, we use tree tubes to keep them from being browsed on. Also with my fruit tree orchard I put in a deer fence to keep them suckers out. They LOVE apples and pear trees. We have so many deer (and elk) here it is rediculous. I have to put in more time on a deer fence for the vineyard than to plant the grapes themselves! Yah, I cleaned up the 30/30 yesterday. I predict an 'emergency hunt' coming on any day now if they get into any of the fenced areas.