My water technique for Foxtails with forceful spray sprinkler and wood

[MJSanDiego]

I wanted to share my rather crazy looking but effective method for watering my Foxtails and this could be any palm really.  I devised a method to simulate medium rain for even distribution and deep wateing. Hand watering all the time is time consuming to water slowly and effectively. Spray sprinkers have issues with hitting trunks repeatedly and often not watering deeply. Bubblers and drip are ok but hard to monitor and they get clogged, and often not watering deeply. So when it's time to water, I lean a 2x4 wood on the sprinkler side of the trunk, to prevent the spray from directly hitting the trunk.  As the trunk widens I will switch to 2x6, then 2x8, etc. I also lean a wider 1x12 wood on the backside. Notice the sprinkler head about two feet off to the right of the trunk. I have positioned the spray to hit about 2 feet up the trunk. The forceful spray hits the wood barriers creating heavy mist that spans pretty far out, falling evenly, as well as some water that trickes down the wood to the ground, all simulating rain. Even distribution without damaging the trunk!! One inch of "true" rain per hour!

[Harry’s Palms]

Nice set up. I hand water my palms and you’re right , it is time consuming . Harry

[Jim in Los Altos]

Almost all my palms (over 300 in the ground) are subjected to irrigation spray directly hitting their trunks three days per week for many years and none have ever exhibited any trunk deterioration whatsoever. The worst thing was a little algae growth on Archontophoenix. 
 

[Fishinsteeg234]

Bromeliads or other foliage plants placed at the around the base of the palm can have the same effect to help block direct spray. It will also look better and you don’t have to keep moving boards around. 

[MJSanDiego]

I am not understanding. There are countless threads regarding repeated sprinklers hitting trunks of palms and all sorts of members agreeing about how bad it is, causes trunk rot, decay, fungus, all sorts of bad things. When a member posts an issue related, all sorts of people reply it's the sprinklers hitting the trunks over time. Even some members I recognize here.  Now, @Jim in Los Altos states it's not a problem. He's been doing it for decades on 300 palms 3 days a week. Now nobody says anything or even disagrees, in fact agreeing with likes!!!  What is going on? If I said the same thing as @Jim in Los Altos, even though I only have 10 palms, I would get hounded as being wrong. I don't know what is going on, guess I'm not part of the click. Here I came up with what I thought was a helpful method for simulating rain and apparently it's pointless. Spray away now all of a sudden Until tomorrow anyway, when someone posts up a problem and it's now suddenly caused by the sprinklers hitting the trunks of course. Hmmm. Inconsistencies....

[Jim in Los Altos]

59 minutes ago, MJSanDiego said:

I am not understanding. There are countless threads regarding repeated sprinklers hitting trunks of palms and all sorts of members agreeing about how bad it is, causes trunk rot, decay, fungus, all sorts of bad things. When a member posts an issue related, all sorts of people reply it's the sprinklers hitting the trunks over time. Even some members I recognize here.  Now, @Jim in Los Altos states it's not a problem. He's been doing it for decades on 300 palms 3 days a week. Now nobody says anything or even disagrees, in fact agreeing with likes!!!  What is going on? If I said the same thing as @Jim in Los Altos, even though I only have 10 palms, I would get hounded as being wrong. I don't know what is going on, guess I'm not part of the click. Here I came up with what I thought was a helpful method for simulating rain and apparently it's pointless. Spray away now all of a sudden Until tomorrow anyway, when someone posts up a problem and it's now suddenly caused by the sprinklers hitting the trunks of course. Hmmm. Inconsistencies....

Martin, if you’re not noticing the location of palm growers when there’s a discussion of a topic like this, it would be confusing. You and I are both in relatively dry California. The posters who may have linked sprinkler water to trunk erosion are for the most part in warm-hot humid climates where wet lower trunks may take a considerably longer time to dry out than here in CA where it often only takes a few minutes for a wet trunk to dry off.
 

Regardless of that, there are many palm species that will tolerate even submersed trunks for various periods of time without any damage regardless of geographical location. 
 

Please don’t jump to conclusions about any of us palm lovers on this site. Many of us have more in common than not. 

[sonoranfans]

1 hour ago, MJSanDiego said:

I am not understanding. There are countless threads regarding repeated sprinklers hitting trunks of palms and all sorts of members agreeing about how bad it is, causes trunk rot, decay, fungus, all sorts of bad things. When a member posts an issue related, all sorts of people reply it's the sprinklers hitting the trunks over time. Even some members I recognize here.  Now, @Jim in Los Altos states it's not a problem. He's been doing it for decades on 300 palms 3 days a week. Now nobody says anything or even disagrees, in fact agreeing with likes!!!  What is going on? If I said the same thing as @Jim in Los Altos, even though I only have 10 palms, I would get hounded as being wrong. I don't know what is going on, guess I'm not part of the click. Here I came up with what I thought was a helpful method for simulating rain and apparently it's pointless. Spray away now all of a sudden Until tomorrow anyway, when someone posts up a problem and it's now suddenly caused by the sprinklers hitting the trunks of course. Hmmm. Inconsistencies....

I agree with Jim, my water loving palms are all getting hit minimum 2x a week with sprinklers for 30-35 mins.  Yeah some algae or moss or lichens will grow on the lower foot or two of trunk.  NO rotting observed 14 years in, fast growth and happy palms.  I do think you could rot a dry loving species like washingtonia filifera.  Here is my sabal trunk, lots of stuff growing in summer, dies back in winter each year.

[MJSanDiego]

34 minutes ago, Jim in Los Altos said:

Martin, if you’re not noticing the location of palm growers when there’s a discussion of a topic like this, it would be confusing. You and I are both in relatively dry California. The posters who may have linked sprinkler water to trunk erosion are for the most part in warm-hot humid climates where wet lower trunks may take a considerably longer time to dry out than here in CA where it often only takes a few minutes for a wet trunk to dry off

That is a good point. I guess it's less of an issue, or not even an issue here in our semi arid Mediterranean climate, thanks for clarifying.  Hopefully my method helps someone in a warm humid climate