How to Install a Drip Irrigation System for Small Farms (DIY Beginner's Guide)
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- Опубліковано 7 лип 2024
- Adam walks you through installing a drip tape irrigation system for small farms.
If you want to use the exact kit we used in this video, we used our Small Farm Kit: www.dripdepot.com/drip-irriga...
Explore our selection of Drip Irrigation Kits: www.dripdepot.com/category/dr...
Special thanks to our friends at Mama Bees Flower Farm in Applegate, Oregon. mamabeesfarm.com/
Shop with us at dripdepot.com.
How to Design a Drip Irrigation System: • How to Design a Drip I...
Planning a Drip Irrigation System Guide: help.dripdepot.com/support/so...
Tools used:
- 🔨 Hammer
- ✂️ Scissors
- Drip Tape Hole Punch - Size : 0.345 Barb (Red): www.dripdepot.com/punch-size-...
Parts list:
Head Assembly:
- Hose End Irrigation Timer - Outlets - Two: - www.dripdepot.com/hose-end-ir...
- Hose Vacuum Breaker: www.dripdepot.com/bros-j10-ho...
- 3/4" Hose Thread Filter: www.dripdepot.com/three-quart...
- 3/4" Hose Thread Pressure Regulator - PSI : 15 PSI: www.dripdepot.com/three-quart...
- 3/4" Perma-Loc Tubing x 3/4" Female Hose Thread Swivel (FHTS) Adapter: www.dripdepot.com/perma-loc-t...
Tubing:
- Polyethylene Tubing - Size : 3/4" - Length : 250': www.dripdepot.com/polyethylen...
Emitters:
- P1 Ultra 5/8" Drip Tape - Wall Thickness : 15 mil - Emitter Spacing : 12" - Emitter Flow : 0.25 GPH - Roll Length : 1,000': www.dripdepot.com/p1-five-eig...
Fittings:
- Perma-Loc Tape x Barb Tubing Takeoff Adapter Valve - Barb Size : 7.0 mm - Perma-Loc Size : 5/8" Tape: www.dripdepot.com/perma-loc-t...
- Perma-Loc Tape End Cap - Perma-Loc Size : 5/8" Tape: www.dripdepot.com/perma-loc-t...
- Perma-Loc Tubing End Cap - Perma-Loc Size : 3/4": www.dripdepot.com/perma-loc-t...
- Perma-Loc Tubing Coupling - Size : 3/4": www.dripdepot.com/perma-loc-t...
Misc. Parts:
- Goof Plug - Size : 0.388" - 0.440": www.dripdepot.com/goof-plug-s...
- 6" Heavy Duty Wire Staple: www.dripdepot.com/6-inch-heav...
Other supplies you might need:
Foam Knee Pads: www.dripdepot.com/foam-garden...
Spiral Planting Drill Bit: www.dripdepot.com/spiral-plan...
Fabric Grow Pots: www.dripdepot.com/fabric-grow...
Frost/Germination Blanket: www.dripdepot.com/frost-germi...
Landscape Fabric: www.dripdepot.com/pro-spun-la...
Anti-Bird Netting: www.dripdepot.com/anti-bird-n...
Frost Protection Row Fabric: www.dripdepot.com/frost-prote...
Hand Push Seeder Machine: www.dripdepot.com/hand-push-s...
Harvesting Apron: www.dripdepot.com/harvesting-...
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Another great set up Adam, that farm will make some great produce! Hope your staying warm up there!
Thank you Sam! It's always great to hear from you -- we've been hitting the mid 50s for the last couple weeks, looking to get up into the 60s today. Strangely warm year, but I'm not going to complain. I hope your'e staying warm down there! I think your area got all of our cold weather this year :)
If you are doing this during spring, I would use a torpedo heater to warm that line up. I am not a know it, but I sure am good at bringing heat to work! I work outside a lot and hate the cold.
This is great advice! When we were shooting this video a couple of the mornings were very cold, a torpedo heater would have been nice!
Looking at them, they could be used to heat up the tubing too, which makes it easier to install and then you wouldn't have to wait until it warms up in the afternoon.
Hi Adam, I will be emailing you soon regarding my drip irrigation fix + expansion. Give me a few weeks to complete a massive backyard makeover.
That's fantastic Dave, I'll be happy to help! Will you be using the "Contact Us" part of our page for the email? If so, just put "Attn: Adam" in the title and they'll get it right over to me, I absolutely look forward to assisting :)
Excellent video. lot to learn. You have any moisture sensor with it .
Thank you for the kind words!
You bet -- we have a couple manual ones (that you simply push into the soil and wait a moment or so for the reading) and one wired one that works with Hydrologic timers. Some of the manual ones are combo sensors and can test pH, light, moisture and soil temperature -- here's a link to our manual ones if you'd like to have a look at them: www.dripdepot.com/gardening-soil-testers
We're hoping to bring in some automatic ones that work with irrigation controllers as well, such as Hunter's Soil-Clik -- these are pretty nice because they can automatically turn off the irrigation when moisture levels are where you want them (if you don't already have a controller they can require quite a bit of setup time though).
Very informative video, would you recommend a system like this for an acre of corn in Texas with a drip tape line on each corn row?
You bet! Drip tape is very frequently used to grow corn -- depending on the cultivar, one to two lines of tape can be used to effectively irrigate them. We'll get a video made about this some day for sure -- in the meantime, Netafim has some great information -- it's marketing for sure, but also full of solid info and some case studies: www.netafim.com/en/crop-knowledge/corn/
Thank you for the informative videos! I have a few questions where I hope you can help.
1 - what do you do each year if you end up putting mulch over your beds? Do you bury the drip tape or pull it up and put the mulch under?
2 - would it better to install the drip-tape adapter fitting or break the main line with a T and use Perma-lock fittings everywhere.
3 - and finally, is it better to use hose thread or pipe thread for the fittings after the spigot (meaning, get an adapter)? It seems like all of those rubber washer fittings are just going to wear out over time.
Thank you for your help and all of the great videos!
You bet, happy to assist!
1. To some degree this one is personal preference, and we see both done frequently. With drip tape, if it's not a large application I like to place the tape on top of the mulch. This makes it easier to identify leaks or drippers not dripping. With larger applications (large gardens, small farms, etc) it may not be practical to pull it all up. Some people also like to bury it to increase water efficiency, but even on the surface drip tape is very water-efficient.
2. Using a Tubing x Tape tee is the most durable/permanent choice, but the barbed takeoff adapter method should still last for years and years with normal use (heavy foot traffic, dogs, raccoons, etc, are the real danger to tape connections).
3. You are correct that the washers in the female hose connections will wear out after some time, but I still generally stick with hose threaded items when running from a hose bib. The washers are very common and inexpensive and there typically won't be too many hose connections after the head assembly parts.
If any follow-up questions come, please don't hesitate to reach out at any time! :)
@@dripdepot Thank you! One last comment... The description details might have an error in it. It says, "Perma-Loc Tape x Barb Tubing Takeoff Adapter Valve - Barb Size : 3.6 mm - Perma-Loc Size", but I think you used the 7.0 mm version.
@@chriskellum5100 Thank you for the good eyes Chris! Fixed and updated :)
I like all this.
concerned about all that plastic coming of the tap - i'll break that in about 20 minutes - there's no way that would hold up on my small farm - is the regulator mountable??
Rigorous conditions on an active farm setting is definitely something to account for, good call! The regulator could potentially be mounted in a number of ways, what did you have in mind to mount the regulator to? Also, would that be primarily to protect it from damage? The reason I ask is those Senninger regulators are exceptionally durable, we've seen them them last decades in some pretty harsh environments. :)
Hi - Great video. What water pressure (bar) / flow (lliters / min) do you require to support this set up?
For pressure, both zones were regulated to 1.03 bar (15 PSI) and we used 1073m of the 1250m drip tape the kit comes with. If you were to use all of the tape and ran it as two zones, the filter would need to be able to support 32.37 l/m. The canister filter used in the video can handle up to 37.85 liters per minute. :)
Is it better to leave the non-farmed rows as grass or to plow the entire plot?
This is a great question -- like all great questions, there's no one right answer, but I'm happy to expand on that below :)
In the video, non-farmed rows were left grassy because it's going to be a "u-pick" flower farm, so people will need to be able to easily walk between the rows. Leaving natural grasses in un-farmed rows or between rows can also help with things like erosion control, minimizing soil disturbance, and soil ecosystem (native grasses often provide a habitat for beneficial insects and bacteria).
Tilling the un-farmed rows or area between rows can provide better weed control by cutting them down early in their growth, tilled soil is better at absorbing water (soil infiltration rate) so can reduce run-off/evaporation with some watering methods, and tilling can help with aeration, and to some degree, overall soil structure.
It's a lot of weighing the pros and cons of each -- with drip irrigation, the soil infiltration rate the soil isn't as big of a concern as it's likely the application of water won't exceed the soil's ability to absorb it, but still worth accounting for if the soil is particularly dense :)
Thank you for the great question!
@@dripdepot thank you for the great response!
No, you can't see how easy it was to unwind the outside tubing. Why? Because even though it was sitting in the Sun and most likely, this was done during the really heat of summer unlike most of us who do it in the Spring when it's still quite cool out even in the full sun like I am to day you're going to get kinks and you need. More than 1 person he was showing it like himself, but you know he had help. Because there's no way you could do this by yourself. Without getting kinks and these kinks get memory. And you gotta really push hard on kink that I even had to Bury mine and use a bunch of stakes but this part.I wish they would had a little more pliable tubing
It was in September that I did this one -- I don't fully recall the temperature, other than it wasn't hot, but it wasn't chill either. I did indeed install the mainline myself in this one, but as you can see it came off the spool reasonably easy at about 8:26 in. When you unroll coiled tubing like this, unroll it in loops like I did there, and then, as you mentioned stake it as you go. You can even gather up most of the stakes a day or two later to re-use, as the tubing will keep its shape after some thermal expansion/contraction cycles (it does indeed have a memory as you mentioned).
There is tubing that's made of a more pliable material -- vinyl tubing is available in sizes right around the same as poly. Vinyl just doesn't stand up well outside though, it's additional pliability also makes it more susceptible to damage from foot traffic, thirsty animals, etc. It's also more vulnerable to UV exposure and will get brittle many years before poly tubing will. Vinyl is great for indoor applications though, where UV is minimized compared to sun exposure.
You sound miserable!! Geez bro life is short.. enjoy it