Monday, 20 April 2009

Drip Irrigation: Proper Drip Irrigation Systems for Your Garden

By Erich

Irrigation systems are designed with a purpose of supplying an adequate amount of water to garden plants in a timely manner. Therefore, it is important to design and install an irrigation system as the better irrigation solution.

Several irrigation techniques are developed with the advent of modern technology, which use as little water as possible giving satisfactory positive results. Drip irrigation is such powerful and efficient watering method. So, purchase drip irrigation supplies from the store and install suitable drip irrigation systems in your garden.

There are two types of systems available such as sprinkler/spray head and drip or trickle irrigation systems for supplying water to the crops or vegetations in the garden.

The most common and popular types of systems developed especially for large areas of crop or lawn are sprinkler type systems. You can have permanent fixed sprinkler heads or moving or movable spray head/sprinkler systems that make your watering task easy.

Most of the large irrigation systems are divided into many independent irrigation/watering zones. Such zone is a group of sprinklers or emitters all can be controlled together at the same time. Pump and delivery pipe-work should be capable of supplying at least one such zone with water at any time.

It is because, there is not always enough pressure/flow to run sprinklers for an entire yard at once, therefore, it is important to have watering zones for your irrigation systems. Moreover, for each zone, there has to be a solenoid valve on it, which is controlled via wire by a controller.

Irrigation systems are high-risk when it comes to the possibility of potable water contamination. Sprinkler heads and other components can allow contaminants like fertilizers, pesticides or pet feces into water supplies, and therefore, back-flow prevention devices are used to eliminate such hazards.

For drip irrigation systems, there are several plus-points. More importantly, they provide constant moisture to the garden plants without making them saturated. Because, they involve water slowly water supply, which goes directly to the soil. Therefore, this dripping method of irrigation is considered to be highly efficient watering solutions.

Get hold of drip irrigation kits. They will allow you to water your plants separately with emitters, or water groups of plants with micro-spray stakes/tapes that ooze water along the entire length.

Unfortunately, drip emitters have certain drawbacks as they are easily plugged by silt or other particles not filtered out of the water. Moreover, the emitter blockages might be caused by growing in the tape and/or by chemical deposits at the emitter head.

So, for drip irrigation systems, there has to be fine filtration and higher water quality compared to sprinklers. If it is surface water source such as ditch and reservoir, you need to use high quality filtration stages. If it is a borehole source, then less filtration is required.

Sprinklers water unevenly, waste water, and are hard to reconfigure. Sprinkler irrigation systems, if you think, are one of the most used watering systems worldwide.

You see, most landscape plants will typically dry out quickly. Some plants are appropriate in one climate and might not work well in another. Any skilled operator of an irrigation system will ensure you that his/her garden plants always receive the proper amount of water for optimum crop, and landscape planting growth.

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