Building up the irrigation system

Over last 2 weeks we have been busy building up a drip irrigation system to make watering all our plants so much easier. The well is working fine and water seems strong - the pressure is a strong 60 Psi, but after about 30 minutes the volume does seem to drop a bit, but keeps going beyond an hour which is the longest I have run it continuously.

The main irrigation spine going down the main back row is 1" PVC - from that we have 4 separate 3/4 " PVC pipes that we have buried to feed the circles, these in turn feed 3/8" black poly pipe onto which we have put the 2 gallon per hour pressure compensated (cleanable) drippers from Irrigation Direct. The side pipes are joined with couplers and the spine is also joined with couplers in 4 places so that we can remove this main feed at end of season.



Each hop crown has its own blue dripper , the poly pipe is then anchored in place using 12" wire hooks pushed into the soil. Each circle has between 20 and 24 hops plants, and the 128ft back row has them spaced 3 ft apart.... right now we are tilling up a back back row , an additional row on the same wires spaced 3 ft behind the main row. This will add space for our extra Goldings and Chinooks.


The drippers seem to work very well on the well water so far without supplimental pressure , but will monitor once fully installed within next few days.

The main valve will be on a timer with two settings per day allowing about 3 gallons per bine