For this coming summer I would like to set up an irrigation system for my fig trees. They all kept in pots except few that will be planted in ground around March-April.  Have already looked at the "Drip Works" website.

Would like to know what type of irrg. systems you all using for your fig trees in pots or in ground?


Thank you.

These three threads should give some ideas:

http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=2648417&highlight=irrigation

http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=3883309&highlight=irrigation

http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=4741434&highlight=irrigation

The important thing is to do the math, so that you know how much water per hour (or minute) you emitters put out, and how long you need (time) to run them to equal the amount of water you were putting on by hand.

And you need enough emitters per pot to water evenly.

nkesh099
You have mail

smiles4allages,

Thank you so much, I did receive your email. It was very informative.

I am so glad someone questioned irrigation systems! I have been designing one for about 6 months.  The links Jason provided really helped and got me redesigning.  I started buying some of my supplies last summer.  One the thread Jason posted, Tim in Newport, NC (not too far from me) has a nice system.  Thank you Jason for posting because I forgot about that link.  I was planning on just using drip emmitter but after seeing Tim's photos, I realized I'm going to need to use micro sprinklers because some of my trees are 3 and 4 years old.  I like the timer that Sal uses and will be getting one too.  I am planning on building my system in March and at the same time put about 30 trees in the ground.  Thanks again nkesh099 for posting.  This thread helped me alot.  cheers,

Nkesh,

Due to work travel, I had to install a drip system. I did so by converting existing sprinkler heads in the flower beds from spray to drip. Since the heads are all in the same zone, it made watering via the home sprinkler system ideal, effective, and efficient.

Pictures follow; here are the words...

• Remove the existing body of the sprinkler (it screws off) and replace it with the cap,
• Unscrew the 1/2" MPT  placeholder on the body of the housing and insert a PVC fitting (1/2" MPT to MHT), and
  
• Connect a tee filter, followed by a regulator, a hose starter, and then the 1/2" hose.
  

I use a drip system and swear by it Hooked it up to a timer and did not have to worry about vacation and my trees rewarded me with healthy fruits. I have trees in pots, in the ground, in the green house, in the living room.Sorry got carried away.
But the drip system is awesome and relatively cheap.

Navid,

Replace an existing sprinkler head with drip irrigation. Twist off and twist on.
Add a zone to an existing home sprinkler system: Hire a professional.
No worry about the figs while away from home. Priceless.

Adding the zone requires a plower, electrical know how, and knowledge of the existing system. There are professionals who know the details. I don't. For clarity, I corrected my initial post from "we added a new 'drip' zone" to "we had a new drip zone added".

JD

NAvid my drip system is run from a battery operated timer hooked to my garden hose. The other end goes to the 1/2 inch feeder tube then the smaller tubes to the emmitters where needed. It is all above ground and the emmitters go into the pots or around the base of the inground trees. I then tested the time it took the emmiters to fill a gallon milk jug to make sure my timer was set properly. I have little sprinkler experience but this was simple and done in one saturday afternoon.

Ok  you guys, JD, Navid, Northeastnewbie, I plan on using drip emmitters for my container trees but I want to use micro-sprinklers for my in-ground trees.  The micro jets come in orange, blue, green.  I guess the micro jets sprays a certain amount of gallons per hour flow rate.  But what do you guys recommend?  Heck all I want a basic spray of water for each tree and container controlled by a timer.  And how about some close up pictures of your micro-sprinklers on your in ground figs.  thanks,

snag I have looked at the sprayers but I dont think I would have enough pressure and volume to run them with my emmitters. I am not an expert but I just used drip emmitters at various drip amounts on larger trees. My largest tree had three 1 gal drip emmitters circling the tree base. Now with the smaller pots have one 1/4 gal drip emmiter in the pot. now at 15 minutes twice a day I put a daily total of 1.5 gal of water on my large trees and 1/8 gal on my small 1 gal pots. this is during August when the area is the hottest. I back it down in the spring and fall. It is trial and error just run your emmitters into a gal jug for 15 minutes and see exactly how much your system puts out and adjust accordingly.  I would post pictures but my system is packed up for the winter.  One tip if you have well water do not use the soaker hose the mineral deposits in the well water will clogg the soaker hose in no time then you have to replace it. 

Hi All.
One thing you want to keep in mind is that when you use any type of overhead irrigation, micro sprays included you loose more than 50% of the water to direct evaporation. If you take note of a well designed overhead irrigation system you will not see any fogging or misting you will see droplets similar to a rain drop.
I have over 25 yrs. in landscape irrigation design. Your most efficient  use of water is by using a drip system. Keeping in mind the types of soil you are dealing with and how the water moves through YOUR soil. With a very loose mix water will perk very quickly nearly straight down. Heaver soil with a lot of clay the water may perk in an oval pattern and may not water completely the root zone. To my way of thinking it is better to use more emitters and run the system less time than fewer emitters and saturating a very small area.
Also think about where the feeder roots are on you fig tree. They do not go very deep straight down but spread close to the surface compared to other fruit trees. Not all emitters are the same. Depending on what your water pressure is some will deliver more than what they are rated for. Minerals in you water can cause them to change rates. Do not cover your emitters keep them up so you can see them working. For the most part you may not be running a drip system every day and it just takes one night for a spider to spin a web in the emitter which will cause it to malfunction. Depending on water presser the number of emitters on one lateral line is important since with each emitter on some systems you will loose pressure. Think of water like eclectic you can't operate a 1hp motor 100 feet from the power source with an lamp cord. Water behaves in a similar manner the further you are from the source to maintain pressure you will need larger piping. The source can be a well or city supply. If you house is supplied with a 3/4" copper pipe from the street you can't increase the flow  unless you add a booster pump.
Any questions?
Al
NJ Z 6

northeastnewbie and Al,

Once again great information from someone with experience. At first I thought about using micro-sprinklers as snaglpus mentioned, but, I've decided to use emitters for my drip system. For big pots I will probably use 3-4 emitters and for smaller pots 2 emitters.

JD,

I don't have any experience in plumbing but I do have a friend that he knows some plumbing, I might have will have to give him a call.
By the way, your 2nd pic. gave me a good idea for designing my system. Maybe I'll just make it like yours... Thank for the pictures. 

I do have one more questions for you guys. Where on-line did/do your shopping for drip systems kits or equipments? I know there are many companies out there sell these stuff, but what are the some reputable one?
If possible provide me with their name or websites.

Navid

Navid,

You can find everything you may need at  Home Dept or Lowes.
Here is a link to some installation.
You can use a valve and timer combination found at the big box stores.
Al
http://www.toro.com/sprinklers/online_piglet.pdf

http://toro.com/sprinklers/bsd/index.html

For all of my inground trees and plants I use drip tape just because its so cheap. We planted trees along one side of the property and I ran it down one side of the trees and back on the other side to a hose bib that run is 1000ft round trip when its dry out I turn it on in the evening and let it run till morning and the whole area is nice and wet. It is also mulched heavy with leaves every winter to hold moisture.

Hi Navid,

If you are going to use a garden hose of a hose bib on you home you will want to take a hose to the locaton of where you want to irrigate. At this point you will need a 5 gal bucket and a watch. Time how long it takes to fill the 5 gal bucket. This will tell you how many gpm of water you have to work with. What you may not know is what is the psi pressure of the water.
Let us say you have 4 gpm at this point. Now you know that you have 240 gph. If you have 25 trees and use 4 emitters per tree at 2.5 gph. 100 emitters 2.5 gph = 250 gph. You do not have enough water to service 100 emitters on one line, what you now need is a valve that has 2 timed outlets.
Now if you measure the gpm at the source and find it to be 5 + gpm you can increase the size of the hose to deliver more water with less pressure drop.

Al
NJ Z6

Daygrower i have seen drip tape and in my opinion it has the same principles as a soaker hose. If you use it with city water you should do alright but with well water the mineral will clog the pores and render it useless in a few months.  All of my emmitters can be changed out or replaced if they clogg and at 12-14 cents apeace they are disposable. I have hard well water with a high iron content and the soaker hoses have all hit the trash from experience. i am going to post a few pictures of my set up

Northeastnewbie
Good point yes that can be a real problem in certain areas I have well water but so far no problem with the drip tape its been 4 years I do have a filter on the well that I have to clean every couple of months but mostly for fine sand my well is deep and we probably don't have as much of a mineral problem as some other parts of the country.and the drip tape is so cheap even if it lasted a year I would use it for long runs and to start trees I think it was 6000ft for $100.00.But for pots and small areas the emitters are a much better choice I have overhead in my growing area now but i want to change over to drip I have a few hundred immiters and the spaghetti tube but to many projects ahead of that one.

here is a few pictures this is all run from a vigoro battery operated timer hooked to my hose bib. then piped 100 ft to the trees.


 this is one line that i drape ontop of my one gal pots and anchor it over the trees with landscape fabric staples.

 this is another method same priciple just using the smaller hose and emmiters. more flexable and easier to move pots around.

this is another view of the smaller hose with emmitters.

this is a larger tree and pot showing two emmitters in the pot.

remember emmitters have different flow rates and always recheck your flow with a container and timer to make sure you are getting the right amount of water to your trees. A few of my larger inground trees have three emmitters at the base of each tree.

okay I can get water to a tree but cannot get a picture in a post??? sorry

Jim my problem is the hose bibs on my house are before the filters for the house. The original owner must of decided no need to filter the outside water so all the fine sand and minerals clogg up eveything. Drip tape is a great invention and i can see its advantages if the area will support it unfortunatly for me my area will not allow me to use it.

Thanks Al and Navid.  I live in the city and I had my water tested last month.  It has no minerals or anything crazy.  The volume pressure is a little low though I am not sure if I can use micro sprinklers or not.  I would like to use what I have.  Below are a few photos of what I presently have.  What is not shown is the 100 foot 1/2 inch black flex tubing that will be my main water line.  In the photos are stuff I bought over 20 years ago at a Walmart close out sell.  I think I paid a grand total of 3 bucks for this stuff!  I knew one day I would need it. 

I have over 75 drip emitters.  I may need more for my potted trees if I use 2 per pot depending on the pot size.  I just read the back on one of the drip emitter packs.  I get it now!  So, drip emitter do kinda sorta spray water depending on the flow pressure.  Many thanks for the pdf Navid!  That's what I needed! 

NENewbie, thanks for the pics!  A picture is worth a thousand words!   Nice helper you have there!  My helper would be my wife and if I ask her for help I know she will want me to design and install one for our 3 HUGE flower beds.  So, for now, the helper is just me!  Thanks everyone for chiming in with comments.  Many thanks!  cheers,

Dennis alot of our knowledge comes from trial and error give it a try and see what happens.. The important part is to run a test at various points in the final system and see exactly how much water you are putting on your trees to set your timer.. Good luck and have fun..

Al, From what I remember, it takes less than one minute to fill a 5 gallon bucket from my hose bib. So there is enough pressure to distribute the water to all the pots. I am planing to set up 3-4 zones with timers each will be turned on on different times to water all of my in ground and potted trees (figs and other fruit trees).
I think 90 drip emitters for my pots will be enough, and 40-50 for my in ground trees. What concerns me is the water left/standing in those black tubings will get very hot during summer heat of July and Aug. would it be better to use the clear 1/2 inch tubing?

Don't get clear tubing algae will grow and muck up everything if you water in the morning there is no problem with heat buildup