- I'm Jeff Banks.
I'm an Extension Agent for Utah State University
here in Juab County.
Today, we're going to talk about drip irrigation and
how you can conserve water by using different methods
and a different method of drip irrigation around
your home, yard and in the garden.
The system, it is designed to use PVC pipe,
schedule 40 PVC and ball valves and fittings.
It's a system that is very easy to use,
very user-friendly,
easy to set up and today,
I'm going to show you the basic details of this and
show you how this system works.
My system, I used 3/4 inch pipe all the way through
and that's kind of the, probably the choice of
most people using PVC pipe.
This system is designed so that anything
in front of ball valves,
anything in front of these ball valves is all glued
to handle the high pressure.
I know people that will have 100,
over 100 pounds of pressure in this mainline and
so that's why you glue everything
in front of these ball valves.
Then, after the ball valves, you don't have to
glue any of these because once you open up the valves
and let the holes in the lines that we will show you
in a few minutes,
it reduces the pressure so
you don't have to glue everything.
So, the way that you take care of these is,
the rows that you don't want to water,
you have these little plugs,
you just pull out and you push them back in
and then the plug,
it restricts the water from coming down those rows.
So, this year, I've got several feet in between
my squashes I'm going to have here.
Okay, the secondary lines, your irrigation lines
that I just want to talk about briefly,
is again all out of PVC pipe.
You take these pipes, you do not glue them.
You just straight set them into these little Ts.
Okay, once it's all set up,
a person can decide which way they want
to have the holes up.
Most people will put the holes down,
you will turn the pipe with the holes down
but some people like with the holes up.
It's kind of a matter of preference.
I like the holes down because the water will drain
out of the lines,
so if a person is going to use this with the holes up,
what we recommend is,
about every three feet on the opposite side,
they drill a little small hole, a little drainage hole
that will help drain the water out.
Okay, one of the biggest questions we have on this system
is what size holes do you put in your irrigation lines?
Different hole sizes have been tried but the preference
that we use, that we've come up with through the years
that has had the best result is a 1/16 inch.
The first time I drilled all my holes,
after I had them marked,
I was down on my hands and knees down on the lawn
drilling my holes and then, the next time around,
I had somebody suggest to me, you know,
if you had some tables,
it sure makes it a lot easier on drilling the holes.
So, that's what I've got here set up and I want to show you.
Okay, so you use a 1/16 inch bit.
You don't need a lot of heavy-duty equipment.
A tape measure and some kind of marking tool
and then a drill.
The preferred method,
I get people asking me the question on spacing,
how many holes do we put in?
The thing that seems to work the best
when you're doing things like corn, peas,
carrots, beans, these types of things,
you drill a 1/16 inch hole every six inches.
Then, if you're going to do things like
tomatoes, squash, these types of things,
this would be personal preference on how
far apart you have them.
On my tomatoes, I like to have my tomatoes have
a little bit of room so mine are every four feet.
Some of my squash plants are up to five, six feet apart.
So, what you do on that is that you'll drill a group
of two to three holes about five feet apart.
So, I want to show you how I like to do it.
I'll take my tape measure and I'll mark it out.
I'll go the full length, whatever length I was going to go
and then just a little magic marker.
I'm going to do it every six inches for like corn,
these type of things,
so I'll go along the whole length of the pipe
and measure them and then, like I said,
some type of little drill.
You just come in and you drill 1/16 inch holes
about every six inches.
You want to make sure you don't go all the way through
and drill a hole in the table or you will get in trouble.
Another thing to consider, and I was going to show you this
at the very first, is a lot of people that I've talked to,
they drill their holes and then they talk to me about
well, their holes aren't lined up
and they're kind of crooked,
so what I suggest they do,
you just take another one of your little Ts,
you've probably already bought somewhere,
put a couple little pieces of the pipe in there and
then go ahead and put that on the end
and then as you go through and mark it,
it will hold that pipe still and
it won't roll back and forth.
I want to show you how I designed my system
to work on raised beds.
Again, the same kind of principle.
We have the main delivery line.
It goes along the edge of all my raised beds.
Then, I have my break-off or my secondary lines
like I mentioned in my traditional garden.
How I designed mine is I've got three different rows
in this raised bed.
My strawberry plants down here,
they're designed a little bit different
than what I have here.
Right now, I want to use my entire raised bed.
I've got radishes planted already here.
I've got some peppers in the middle and then
on the outside, when the radishes are done,
I'm going to plant some bush beans but
the way I've designed it,
you don't water your peppers and beans and
everything the same.
I've got three different ball valves so I can have,
I can irrigate three different ways in this raised bed.
On the raised bed,
I have some people that want to use the entire bed
so another way to drill holes,
besides just drilling holes like on one side
is to drill the hole all the way through.
On this raised bed here,
and my strawberries are designed this way,
I've got a hole that goes all the way through,
I drilled through and I went every three inches.
That way, I can water from one edge of the bed
clear to the middle and then each of the rows,
I can water the entire bed.
I just want to show you what it actually looks like
by using that system.
Like, when I'm just watering,
when I'm just watering right next to the pipe,
that's what it looks like.
It just comes out, it's just a very small stream.
More of a stream than an actual drip system on it.
If I want to water even more,
say if I've got a bed like my strawberries.
When I do my strawberries,
I will turn the valve basically completely open and
then it will cover from one side to the other so
I can irrigate the entire bed.
For the best results with this,
it needs to be pretty level.
The main line doesn't have to be level but
your irrigation lines, they need to be as level as possible.
They don't have to be laser-level,
but they need to be fairly level.
A way that a person can make changes
if your ground is sloped,
you can put some bricks or something underneath the lines
to try to make them just as level as you can.
You'll have much better success by doing that.
We are down here, here at Nephi at
a brand new community garden that we just developed
this past Fall and this Spring,
this is the first year of using it.
We have 20 raised beds here.
We designed this irrigation system
after the same type of idea.
Here's the main line, it's the main distribution line.
It is all glued and it goes all the way down this whole line
and then we have the break-off lines for
each individual bed.
They can open and close the valves for each plant.
This is just another way that you can adapt this system
to meet raised beds or other ideas.
By using this system, depending on what you compare it to,
I'm comparing it to the test studies that we did
versus, like, row or flood irrigating,
we figure we are saving at least 75 to 80% water
by using this little drip irrigation system.
I've had people in other places confirm the same thing,
saying that they've saved 75 to 80% water
compared to what they had been using.
We have a new fact sheet that was put online in May of 2012.
It's called
"Designing the Basic PVC Drip Irrigation System."
It's a fun little system to use,
very simple to use, easy to design.
We hope that you'll take a look at it or
look at other kinds of drip irrigation systems.
If you have questions about this system or
if I can be of help to you on designing or
questions you may have,
you can get a hold of me at Jeff.Banks@usu.edu
or you can get a hold of me at
my office number 435-623-3452.
I hope this has helped and
have a great gardening season.