Irrigating a field of shrubs, controller and injection advice

12 years ago

So I've read around on the internet and I apologize that you have to read another "what the heck do i buy" post, but I can't find anyone else who wants to irrigate like me and I am not looking to buy the first thing suggested. I would like a few places to start. I'm not afraid of difficult programming and I'm interested in reliability.

I have around 200 shrubs/trees that need watering. I use rainbird PC emitters right now and they seem to be doing fine. I'm trying to make a new system from the ground up.

I will have to throw out some numbers so that I can get some reasonable feedback. A watering/feeding is generally 5000-10000 gallons and lasts a few hours. 90GPM is the flowrate at the moment. I noticed that if I want to spend less than a bajillion dollars on injection dosers I'm looking at designing around 40GPM (dosatron). I generally starve out the plants and then stuff them, so around 3 days between waterings (depending on size and life cycle of course). I would like to inject a couple of things but at minimum an organic fertilizer that won't clog emitters and a pH control system-- both tankless and on-the-fly. Perhaps a third as a "bonus fertilizer" in case i need to add some elixur of sorts.

I would like a soil moisture feedback controller. I don't want/need weather data input. Also, because I highly doubt it is cost effective to take 150 moisture readings I assume that I will want to take some statistically significant portion of the plants and feed the information to a controller. When, on the average, the plants need watering I would like the controller to dose them all at the same time.

It would be cool to have an internet thing and some alarm systems but I am not leaving this farm neglected. I want to put some pressure readings around and some flowrate monitor. I can read these manually but if there is a controller that takes these into consideration when making some decisions (or alarm) I would be interested.

I know I mentioned that I want to both feed and dose, but I dont' know any system that is set up for both. That's, fine, because i believe that the two control systems are not dependent on each other. On the other hand, if there is one controller solution that would be cool. Also I'm not interested in programming computer code or daisy chaining something together from the 1990's. Sorry to those who do but I would like to have something I feel confident with and can go in -- so I can start testing and refining rather than guessing, hoping, and potentially failing.

Thanks in advance! Any help is appreciated. there are so many options out there and they change by the day! A few thousand bucks seems to be the ticket I should be expecting on this type of thing. I won't have too much sticker shock but $10k seems unnecessary- correct me if i'm wrong...

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Comments (3)

lehua49
12 years ago
drewbot,

Some more info and then I will be able to give some reasonable suggestions as would others on this forum.

1. What is the size of pipe you are obtaining your 90 gpm from and the pressure?
2. How many shrubs and how many trees?
3. How much water are you planning to deliver each tree and each shrub when they are young and when they are fully mature per irrigation cycle?
4. How many irrigation cycles are you planning a week? Is that answer 3 or is it 3 days between feedings?
5. Is this a commercial endeavour to be expanded in the near future? Aloha
drewbot
Original Author
12 years ago
hi lehua

thanks for the response. I am going to answer to my current situation as if i am not expanding. If i do expand it will be a carbon copy a couple miles down the road.

1. I'm running 1.5" poly line which is another reason I am going to go with 40gpm. I engineered the lines to take into consideration the pressure drops from high flowrates and it sortof worked out. I have a pressure reducing valve and it is set to around 50psi. I was hoping to add a tank at a lower spot so I didn't need the extra part.

2. I'll say 200 shrubs total, all in.

3. Young I wanted to dose 25 gallons per shrub and older it might take 75 gallons. I am currently trying to figure out exactly what is going on with my irrigation but I'm guessing they're getting 75 gallons.

4. Feedings tend to happen around every third day.

5. I don't want to expand the size of the endeavour. I'm going to bring in a set amount of rock, pumice, soil etc.
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lehua49
12 years ago
Drewb,

Sorry, to prolong this. Your answers are confusing to me. You don't really answer what I asked. Sorry but I probably didn't structure my questions properly for a more specific answer.

1. What size pipe is your source of irrigation water and what is its pressure? Not your main line pipe but I appreciate the info. Tell me how long is your mainline?

2. I don't understand dosing a plant as irrigating. Every time you run your irrigation system, how many gallons of water do you end up putting on each shrub? Explain dosing a plant. You must be a plant doctor.

3. Do you put water on your shrubs every day? What are the number of days between giving your shrub water?

4. Are you selling your shrubs when they get big enough to the public? What is the type of plant? Palms?

5. What is your plant spacing?

Aloha

Irrigating a field of shrubs, controller and injection advice

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lehua49

drewbot
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Irrigating a field of shrubs, controller and injection advice

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lehua49

drewbotOriginal Author

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drewbot
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