Drip Irrigation Questions Again - Sorry!

[KDubU]

I am planning to install drip irrigation that will come off my well prior to our whole house filtration system. I am choosing to do this as I don’t want to have to top up my chlorine and water holding tank too often. Currently planning four zones with an automated timer and will have palms likely separated from other plantings. The main drip line with be 3/4” and I have 50PSI with 818gph (5 gallon bucket filled in 13.5 seconds). The plan will be to reduce the water pressure to 30PSI to not blowout and connectors nor any emitters. 
Here is my problem, I think I have over-analyzed this that I am paralyzed to implement it. I can’t for the life of me pick what type of emitters to purchase. First I thought bubblers but being in FL with sandy soil, I have read mini sprinklers may be better as they will spread the water out a bit more. I am planning multiple emitters per palm and bamboo, and likely some sprinklers for any flowering vegetation. I have been actively looking at Dripworks who has supplied some of my equipment and thinking the down are spraying C emitters make sense but maybe not. Then I go back to looking at bubblers, flag style, etc. and my head is spinning. And yes I am hoping to use all Dig products as much as possible as I have read good reviews on them.

Tks for any guidance you can provide.

Edited to add that I will have a filter in the line to catch crap from our FL water.

 

 

Edited April 19, 2021 by KDubU

[Merlyn]

Most of my setup is on individual button emitters and 1/4" tubing, with the ends set a reasonable distance from the palm/cycad trunk.  It's an "avoid drought deaths" arrangement rather than an "optimize growth" setup.  I do use a few sprayers on a stick and have a couple of bubblers that I quit using.  The bubblers are hard to adjust flow rate, and they bubble out into something like a 6" diameter.  My gut feel is that it's not much different than a drip emitter in terms of coverage.  I use the fan sprayers on a stick in my nursery area, and in a few spots with things like orange bird of paradise.  They can adjust in flow rate and coverage angle (90, 180, 270 and 360 sprays), and if you need to cover a bigger area you can just put it higher on the stick. 

I don't care for the Rainbird 360 microsprays with the vertically slotted heads.  They spray out in a series of small streams and not in a random coverage pattern.  You end up with a series of wet radial lines instead of even coverage.  If the slot misses a plant it may get zero water.  See below for what I mean:

[doubravsky]

I'm in inland southern California so YMMV, but I tend to just use the pressure compensating emitters. I find that the water spreads out quite a bit over a 30 minute watering period. I ended up running two valves/ lines over the garden, so I use emitters on one valve with a deeper, less regular schedule, and then on the other valve I run sprayers that will provide more often, less deep spray for the really thirsty companion plants like aroids/ philodendrons/ bananas, etc...... 

 

[WaianaeCrider]

9 hours ago, Merlyn said:

Most of my setup is on individual button emitters and 1/4" tubing, with the ends set a reasonable distance from the palm/cycad trunk.  It's an "avoid drought deaths" arrangement rather than an "optimize growth" setup.  I do use a few sprayers on a stick and have a couple of bubblers that I quit using.  The bubblers are hard to adjust flow rate, and they bubble out into something like a 6" diameter.  My gut feel is that it's not much different than a drip emitter in terms of coverage.  I use the fan sprayers on a stick in my nursery area, and in a few spots with things like orange bird of paradise.  They can adjust in flow rate and coverage angle (90, 180, 270 and 360 sprays), and if you need to cover a bigger area you can just put it higher on the stick. 

I don't care for the Rainbird 360 microsprays with the vertically slotted heads.  They spray out in a series of small streams and not in a random coverage pattern.  You end up with a series of wet radial lines instead of even coverage.  If the slot misses a plant it may get zero water.  See below for what I mean:

I bought a few of those blue ones from HD.  They suck.  Barely sprayed with what ever pressure I have "out there".  The dealer that I use to goto in town seems to have gone out of business so I began searching.  Tried HD, NOPE.  Went on to Amazon and got the different color ones like you have in the picture's right side.  They work really well and are CHEAP.  The onle default is they are made in China and I hate buying from them.  But that was the only way I could go.

[96720]

I think bow smiths are the best I have never had any problem with them plugging up like some other emitters when I first started my jungle I used rainbird emitters all the sudden one plant would look like crap I check the water no water coming out of the emitter, I switched to bowsmiths and haven’t had any problems but they are expensive. For palms that I want to give more water I use shrubblers they are adjustable so you can give more or less water without having to add another dropper.

Edited April 20, 2021 by 96720
Addition

[KDubU]

Thanks everyone for the feedback, all good info. Now on the hunt of what @Merlyn mentions and also looking at the Bowsmiths that @96720 brought up. They may be a good idea because the unfiltered water coming from my well has particles and even with a filter on the irrigation line , I am concerned stuff will potentially clog emitters. All part of the maintenance I guess.

[Allen]

1 hour ago, KDubU said:

Thanks everyone for the feedback, all good info. Now on the hunt of what @Merlyn mentions and also looking at the Bowsmiths that @96720 brought up. They may be a good idea because the unfiltered water coming from my well has particles and even with a filter on the irrigation line , I am concerned stuff will potentially clog emitters. All part of the maintenance I guess.

I have well water and my drip irrigation has it's own filter.   Each year when I turn them on I go around and check the emitters (I use both dripline and single 1 gph emitters).  This year I replaced around 10 out of a estimated 200 drippers.  They are easy to replace and cheap, just take scissors and cut old one off and pop new one on the line.  I don't even think about cleaning them since they cost .20 something cents each.  I personally buy all stuff from the online place that has depot in its name.

[sonoranfans]

I have had drip in arizona and in florida, VERY different situations with different solutions.  Dig used to have a website that was full of information but I will condense the dripper part for you.  The wet spot of a dripper, bubbler, sprayer depends on the soil drainage.  Lower drainage clay or limestone rock gives a big shallow wet spot up to 3' in diameter (depending on the drainage) for even one 2 gallon button dripper.  This area shrinks massively as drainage rises and in my sandy florida soil it gives but a 4-6 inch wet spot that is deep because downward movement of water is laarge vs horizontal movement of water in high drainage.  In low drainage, depth of watering depends only on time, not gph rate, and you get wide wet spots that depend on gph put down.  So in arizona low drainage clay I used 3-4 2gph drippers around a large juvenile tree and they made a wet spot about 10-12 feet in diameter in 5 hrs of continuous watering to a depth of 4'.   1gph drippers clogged with water hardness so easily, they had to be replaced almost every year.   Also when drippers do clog up initially, a 1 gal becomes a lower flowrate, perhaps 1/2 gal so you run the risk of underwatering when even they start to clog.  In florida, I tried the same approach in florida as in arizona only to see my small palms struggle in growth.  I ended up adding hand watering them to keep them healthy.  So I went and read up on the DIG site.  IF your soil is high drainage you dont need so long a watering time but drippers are not the answer, high flowrates are part of the solution.  So I tried a variety of micro sprayers, and things improved markedly.  No dry spots near the palms this way with 7-14 gph sprayers arranged around the planting areas.   If you dont wet cycle areas of soil, the roots wont grow there and remember that fertilizer uptake requires moisture.  Bubblers are also for lower drainage soil as they do not spread the water around at the surface hence a relatively small wet spot even at 7gph vs a sprayer.  The other problem with drippers and bubblers in sandy or high drainage soil is that you will likely have to increase their numbers as the palm grows since the radius of root zone of a mature palm can extend 15' from the trunk.   The downside of sprayers and microsprinkers in lower drainage soil with low humidity is that the top of the soil dries fast before the water can penetrate to depth, meaning LOTS of evaporative losses.   SInce things don't evaporate readily in florida due to high humidity, its not a problem here.   As palms become really large, conventional pop up heads can work well if you have dense plantings.   A few popup heads can do the work of 20 drippers and do it more evenly if placed correctly.  This is all physics based on gravity driven depth vs capillary action(sideways) water movement.  You will need to understand your soil and that may be different in different parts of the yard.   If you have sandy soil, button drippers are not as effective as sprayers/microsprinklers over the lifetime of the palm.  On the pressure thing, they have check valves to limit that and you may need them, I certainly did with city water presure relatively high vs well pumps.  So the general rule is low drainage is best handled with low gph drippers and this is especially true in low humidity conditions like out west.  In high drainage soil, dripper buttons are the wrong choice.  After using drip for 20 years in two totally different climates its obvious to me, and its also what DIg recommends.    

[sonoranfans]

One last thing, keep thelength of your 1/4" tubin to a minimum as this is where a huge pressure drag, small diameter tubing.  Run that 3/4" line into the middle of a large bed and take drippers/sprayers off of it using a manifold to keep pressure drag down.

[96720]

My soil is far from clay I leave a hose running slowly on my royals and chambers I can leave it run for days with no puddle. I also put 2 shrubblers on those palms that love water some palms I don’t know if drip can give them enough water if I was doing it over I would probably run and extra line for those palms and put bubblers on them.

[sonoranfans]

1 hour ago, 96720 said:

My soil is far from clay I leave a hose running slowly on my royals and chambers I can leave it run for days with no puddle. I also put 2 shrubblers on those palms that love water some palms I don’t know if drip can give them enough water if I was doing it over I would probably run and extra line for those palms and put bubblers on them.

In Gilbert AZ my yard was an orange clay to 3'+ deep.  When the pick axe bounced off it when trying to dig the first hole, I knew I was in trouble.  I filled an 18" deep hole and it drained like half overnight.  I had to put sulfur down to break it up and that took some time.  Your description of drainage suggests that drippers wont help you, but it also suggsts that water will make its way down into the soil without havy evaporation as long as you water at night.

[KDubU]

Thanks @sonoranfans I believe I have read a post of yours about this previously and made me question drippers and rather use sprayers of some kind. I have sandy soil like many in FL, has any kind of sprayer or micro sprinkler worked better for you in FL?

[96720]

If you look up shrubblers on the internet they work really good they are adjustable up to 13 gal. /hr. So if some palms need more water you can give them more.

[sonoranfans]

22 minutes ago, 96720 said:

If you look up shrubblers on the internet they work really good they are adjustable up to 13 gal. /hr. So if some palms need more water you can give them more.

"shrubblers" have been around a long time by one name or another.  Micro sprinklers and microsprayers ca wet a larger area, they are the next step up.   Microsprinklers wet a circle of 6'+ diameter and microsprayers you choose the spraying angle(90 degrees or 180 degrees) and they spread it 10-12' from the sprayer over this angle, totally wet for large root zones.   I tend to use the microsprayers at the edge of the wet zone, pointing back towrd the palm trunks.  I broke a few shrubblers I did have and I never had a reason to use them at any flow rate other than the maximum so why would I want the moving part which will break when someone walks on it?  I have had those microsprayers and microspinklers for 10 years, no replacements, they cover more ground per emitter than a shrubbler and you can walk on them without them breaking.  To each his own but I use what covers the most root area so I dont need a ton of them.  My palms are pretty large now with roots extending 15'+ from the trunks so I need a bigger surface wetting area per emitter.    If I were in phoenix area I would probably use some shrubblers on the larger palms.

[96720]

I guess that’s the difference between Phoenix and Florida I do landscape maintenance in the Phoenix area and have never seen a micro spray.

[rprimbs]

I've switched to using almost nothing but shrubblers for my potted plants.  I love that they are adjustable, and I can even turn them off completely.

[sonoranfans]

8 hours ago, 96720 said:

I guess that’s the difference between Phoenix and Florida I do landscape maintenance in the Phoenix area and have never seen a micro spray.

yep in phoenix you have big evaporation at the surface so you dont want to wet it down with a microsprayer as it will just evaporate and leave hardness salts.  Very different conditions mean very different approaches for the best conditions.