RE: Irrigation

Check to make sure there is a filter on the system somewhere near the
water source.  This might be of little help because your mineral
deposits may be clogging it up, but it's worth looking at.

If the spray heads are screw on you should be able to just replace them
individually.  Maybe take one off near the end of the system and turn
the water on to flush out the pipes, then replace the head or heads that
are malfunctioning.

As far as the emitters go, I've found that the in-line pressure
compensated emitter line is much less likely to clog than the emitters
you place at the end of spaghetti tubing.  You can still use spaghetti
tubing to place a line at the plant base, but then loop a length of
in-line emitter tubing around the base of the plant at the drip line and
plug it off with a goof plug at the end.

Sorry if this is all old hat to you.  I'm not sure what exactly you've
tried already.

Dana Tamura
USDA zone 9
San Francisco Bay Area
California

-----Original Message-----
From: Duncan Hill [m*@oninet.pt] 
Sent: Monday, April 14, 2003 12:00 AM
To: medit-plants@ucdavis.edu
Subject: Irrigation

Dear All
 
This is maybe a little bit off the line of normal posts on this list but
I 
would appreciate any help that anyone can offer.
 
I have the tenancy of a small house in Southern Portugal with about 5000
m2 
of land, approx 2000 m2 of which has a variety of landscaping and
planting. 
Prior to my moving here there had been quite a comprehensive irrigation 
system installed with a number of different delivery methods, drippers, 
micro-sprays, and a small turf area watered by pop-up sprinklers.
Our water comes from a private well but the water has a very high
carbonate 
level and limescale deposits very readily, my main problem is the best
way 
to maintain the system as far as cleaning etc.
I have replaced some of the smaller emitters on a like for like basis to

correct some problems but to do this across the whole system would be 
uneconomical.
Can anyone offer ideas that I might try for system cleaning. The system
has 
been a little bit neglected over the last couple of years and I would
like 
to bring it back to a reasonable level of efficiency but because of my 
tenancy agreement I am unable to make major changes in the system so 
maintenance it has to be. Two of the turf sprays need to be replaced,
must 
I dig... or is there an easy way.
 
 
Thanks to you all
 
Duncan Hill
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