UK gardening - Drip irrigation watering time

Author

Drip irrigation watering time

mjbarnard

2007-05-21, 5:25 pm

I have installed a Gardena micro-drip irrigation system as well as
below ground drip irrigation line for lawn, borders and pots.

My question relates to watering rates for pots. The system for pots
has drip heads which deliver 4 litres per hour, although I tested a
couple and they seem to go up to 6 litres per hour.

I have some medium/largish pots around 40 cm square and 30 to 50 cm
high with photinia, ceanothus, bay and similar. What rate of watering
or length of time watering using the drip heads does anyone use or
recommend? Currently I have them on one hour in morning and one in
evening - but they seem to be leaking quite a lot and I wonder if this
is too much.

I understand that the answer varies according to plant species, site,
container etc, but I wonder if anyone has any broad recommendations
for this system?

Les Hemmings

2007-05-22, 3:25 am

mjbarnard wrote:
> I have installed a Gardena micro-drip irrigation system as well as
> below ground drip irrigation line for lawn, borders and pots.
>
> My question relates to watering rates for pots. The system for pots
> has drip heads which deliver 4 litres per hour, although I tested a
> couple and they seem to go up to 6 litres per hour.
>
> I understand that the answer varies according to plant species, site,
> container etc, but I wonder if anyone has any broad recommendations
> for this system?

The nursery I used to work for http://www.blakeneyhouse.co.uk/ we used 4lph
drippers and as a rough guide had one dripper per 10 litres of pot. On hot
days we'd run the system for 15 mins in the morning and 15 mins in the
afternoon.

The trouble with leakage gets much worse if the compost totally dries out.
It's difficult to re-wet the compost and expand it to fit the pot again.
Little and often seems way better than one big hit a day.

I proposed a timer to water at dawn and dusk to cut down on evap but it was
never done... The worst wastage was from unused drippers. No on / off tap
on individual drippers.

Les

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think?"...Valerie Emmanuel

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judith

2007-05-22, 3:25 am

On 21 May 2007 14:27:23 -0700, mjbarnard <bin@mjbarnard.demon.co.uk>
wrote:

>I have installed a Gardena micro-drip irrigation system as well as
>below ground drip irrigation line for lawn, borders and pots.
>
>My question relates to watering rates for pots. The system for pots
>has drip heads which deliver 4 litres per hour, although I tested a
>couple and they seem to go up to 6 litres per hour.

I have ten inch pots with one tomato plant in each - I have mine on
for two hours a day - seems about right - there is always a small
amount of excess water which has drained through at the end of the
watering period.

chris French

2007-05-22, 9:25 am

In message <1179782843.744719.232990@x18g2000prd.googlegroups.com>,
mjbarnard <bin@mjbarnard.demon.co.uk> writes
>I have installed a Gardena micro-drip irrigation system as well as
>below ground drip irrigation line for lawn, borders and pots.
>
>My question relates to watering rates for pots. The system for pots
>has drip heads which deliver 4 litres per hour, although I tested a
>couple and they seem to go up to 6 litres per hour.
>
>I have some medium/largish pots around 40 cm square and 30 to 50 cm
>high with photinia, ceanothus, bay and similar. What rate of watering
>or length of time watering using the drip heads does anyone use or
>recommend? Currently I have them on one hour in morning and one in
>evening - but they seem to be leaking quite a lot and I wonder if this
>is too much.
>
I think it's probably way too much - think about how much you might
apply if using a watering can?.

I don't remember precisely, as we've moved and aren't using it any more,
but I think we used to run our system for about 10 minutes 3 times a
day. you need to find a nice warm dry week or so to test it properly.
But I'd probably start at 15 minutes each time.

--
Chris French

chris French

2007-05-22, 1:25 pm

In message <v48553l7msiqhmpjpiq6balm29ss4r5lm9@4ax.com>, judith
<me@privacy.net> writes
>On 21 May 2007 14:27:23 -0700, mjbarnard <bin@mjbarnard.demon.co.uk>
>wrote:
>
>
>I have ten inch pots with one tomato plant in each - I have mine on
>for two hours a day - seems about right - there is always a small
>amount of excess water which has drained through at the end of the
>watering period.
>
You must surely have drippers feeding a lot less water, at 4l per hour
that'd be best part of a watering can full of water per plant per day

--
Chris French

judith

2007-05-23, 1:25 pm

On Tue, 22 May 2007 15:41:44 +0100, chris French
<newspost-c-002@familyfrench.co.uk> wrote:

>In message <v48553l7msiqhmpjpiq6balm29ss4r5lm9@4ax.com>, judith
><me@privacy.net> writes
>You must surely have drippers feeding a lot less water, at 4l per hour
>that'd be best part of a watering can full of water per plant per day

Yes - sorry - you are quite right - they are Gardena - but obviously
have a slower drip rate

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