Drip Irrigation Question

[chbla]

Hi there,

I like to play with home automation and now thought I could add micro (drip) irrigation to my vegetables.

I have some questions before and thought maybe someone experienced here can answer them:

- as long as my pump allows, I assume I should take emitters with a flow rate as large as possible so I don't have the let the pump run for a long time, is this correct?
I'm unsure how one would calculate this system.

- are there any drip lines that have an emitter spacing smaller than 30cm? The usual suspects (hunter, rainbird, irritec) all have 30cm

Thanks a lot for your help,
Christoph

[MarkPelican]

I have two micro drip systems, one off a waterbutt and one of a timed tap.

With the hozelock system, you cut pipe to the length you require and fit dripper either to the end or along the length. You can buy a complete system (with 25 dripper) as a kit but be aware that hozelock have changed the contents, if you want a timer, they no longer make the system that is a simple timer and only supply the "new super dooper system" that waters at sunrise and sunset, whatever it may say in the adverts.

As to the volume per hour, I guess it depends a bit on where you are watering. If you're watering into pots, you need to make sure that the pot can absorb the water at the rate you're adding it, possibly better to run at 1l per hour than 10.

[chbla]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the answer! However, I was referring to driplines with inline emitters (e.g. Rain Bird XF Series Dripline) not the single emitters that you can attach to a closed pipe.

[MarkPelican]

Still Hozelock Hozelock 4LPH in-Line Pressure Compensating Dripper 2784 - Garden Mall (Great Gardens Online) Furniture, Grow Your Own, Accessories and Tools

An example of the in-line dripper. (The hozelock website is worse than useless for showing their product range, I don't know why they bother).

[boatsman]

Netafim make drip lines with drippers spaced at 15 cm. The pipes are 8mm bore and also can be obtained in blank piping of the same diameter. I have used these for planters. They also make 7mm black piping and drippers of 1, 2 and four litres per hour. Galcon make computerized timers that either run off 220 VAC or off 9 volt batteries. All these systems have to be connected to the water mains.