Community Discussions

Just wanted all to know I am still doing extremely well in my Heart surgery recovery.  Working a little more each week but we have a heat wave and drought that is unreal in my area.  Keep my irrigation system going  regularly on my pecan orchard.  Getting stronger evesry day.  I can  do that irrigation without much effort.  Hope this finds all of you my friends doing well and may the God of this world continue  to bless you and keep not just today but always---Will

What type of irrigation system do you have Will?

I am glad you are doing well, keep it up!

MARSHALL--I have two (2) ---two inch wells that were drilled for residential use.  They have a total capacity of approx.  900 gallons per hour between the two of them.  I have my 2  1/2 acres   set up with   1  1/4 inch trunk lines teeing across my  1  3/4 acre orchard----then I use 16 mm delivery lines.   I use   mini  sprinklers that will deliver approx. 25 to 30 gallons per hour.   Use mostly  4  to 6 sprinklers per tree.  With this set up I can deliver  150 to 180 gallons per hour to some of my larger trees.  I run this for approx. 5  to 6 hours each time so all the trees get  a good drink of water.  Would love to have one  (4) inch well and use a larger pump but at my age and having  the present wells  doing so good I probably will finish my working career using these.  I have formula,s that convert my gallons per square foot of coverage into inchs of rainfall.   Works well ---all take care and I will talk to you later----Will

Will, that's a slick set-up! And that's a lot of water, you have two good wells. Do you have problems with lines breaking from tree roots? I guess it doesn't really get cold enough there to worry about or have problems of lines freezing.

The best part is beating the city our of a water bill.

That's great.  Problem here is that the water company almost always has a water restriction out in the summer.  It is city fed, not a well.  4 to 6 sprinklers a tree, how big are they? 

                                                                   God Bless,
                                                                        Jeff

Jeff & Marshall---All of my irrrigation system is above ground.   Takes about 2 days to take it up in the fall, before shaking time and about 2 days to put it back in operation next  early summer, so roots of the trees don,t affect it.  I only have 2 trees that I use 65 sprinklers on and they are 40 years old. (they were on lots I bought in 1984)  Most of my other trees that I  set  out are 20 to 25 years old.  I try to soak an area of 30 by 30 foot on the smaller trees and a 40 by 40 foot on the two larger.  I have me charts on cards that show me how many gallon of water per hour my sprinklers are putting out.  (measure amount of water in  calibrated glass jar for 15 seconds) The chart then tells me how many gallons that would be in an hour.  Multiply 6 hours of running and it tells me how much water for the 6 hours.  I then figured me out a forumula---divided the gallons pumped under the tree by the square footage(1600 sq. ft on the large trees)  That tells me the amount of water in gallons per square foot.  I then divide that by .6 and it tells me  the inches of water (or rain)  i applied to that area.   I try to give all the trees at least an inch  of rain per week.  Hope this did not bore you too much. Will talk to you again soon---Your friend ---Will

Will... glad you are doing so well ! 

Wow... that's a lot of irrigation ! ...be glad there's an excellent water source...

Dave...

Will, why do you take them up?  65 sprinklers each big tree or for the 2 trees together?  This is interesting to me. 

Ajace-  Some of my friends do not take the lines up .  The heavy shaker that I use is too hard to manipulate in between these lines. .  It will crush any of it if you happen to run over it.  It is as big as a 1 ton truck and you usually shake a tree from 2 sides.  Hard to manipulate it in between these lines.  All of it above ground.  My trunk or  water deliver  lines are  1  1/4 PVC.  They go down have way and make a tee across my complete orchard.  The  16 MM (1/2") are the water deliver lines.   They come out from the 1 1/4 line that is teed across the orchard.    There is one  every  40 foot. That is the spacing of the trees .   On small trees the trees get their water from only one line.   On the large trees they get water from  3 lines---one line that goes by the tree and a  line  on each side.   The PVC  1 1/2 lines are cut in  209 foot joints, ends sealed with tape stacked and stored for next year.  The 16mm are rolled up after the Micro sprinklers are taken off.  Takes a lot of work but I reuse them and use them for several years.  I am going to send Marshall a picture of the system working and get him to put it on the forum.   My explanation may have made it worse but the picture will clear it up-----Your friend--Will

You are starting to make it clearer.