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Drip Irrigation, was Re:Success stories, humor and disappointments

Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

 In my winter garden, I tried the 1/4-inch soaker dripline mentioned on this
list by DT last year.  It comes with 1/2 gph emitters spaced at 6,12,or 24
inches along the dripline (I used 12").  It has some advantages over drip
tapes and some disadvantages.  The 1/4-inch transfer barbs and tubing limit
the flow rate which means the tubing length is also limited if you want to
get even distribution at all of the emitters.  You can loop the far end of
the line back and also connect it to the source using a T barb which nearly
doubles the useful length.  With this method, it required 32 feet of the
soaker drip line (32 emitters at 12") to get complete, even distribution in
a clayey 4 X 8 sqft area.  With sandy or loamy soils you may need more or
you may need to use driplines with 6-inch emitter spacing.  You can also
snake it around corners and make sort-radius U turns - unlike drip tapes
which require straight runs.  None of the "self-cleaning, turbulent-flow"
emitters plugged up with our mineralized water  but this was only the first
year.  Cost was $.20/foot in a 500 foot roll, about 3 times the cost of drip
tape but drip tape requires some pricey connectors and fittings which raises
its effective cost.   Drip tape has the advantage of much longer runs if the
take-off is with half-inch fittings instead of the 1/4-inch barb connection
, but this is not important in a sqft plot.  I plan to try it again over our
long, hot, dry Phoenix summer.  So far, it looks like the drip tape will be
best for many of my non-sqft irrigation needs but the soaker dripline may be
better for sqft.

Olin
Phoenix  AZ


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