Watering via drip irrigation

[SailorBold]

This may have been discussed earlier but wanted to see if anyone on here uses drip irrigation to water their palms?

Today I discovered that a couple of my adjustable emitters had stopped flowing..so I think I am going to replace them with something different.

So I was thinking.. to save on water- that I would replace all of them with 1 gph or 2 gph flow heads..and set the timer to run for 1 to 2 hours at a time, perhaps throw in a deep water once every 2 weeks or something.

Does anyone have any suggestions form experience?

Thanks !

[Ben in Norcal]

I have been transitioning several zones to drip as you describe, between last fall and this spring. It's great for slopes and places I can really target water.

[JT in Japan]

I set up drip in my front garden last fall. I prefer the 2GPH emitters, which I run for about 1 hour every 2-4 days depending on the season. The 1GPH seem to do so much less.

There's good reading here, for more info: http://www.palmtalk.org/forum/index.php?/topic/42192-do-your-drippers-really-put-out-the-advertised-gph-flows/

JT

[Ken Johnson]

Palms seem to like drip. The more you can afford the better in most cases. If you know a palm likes dry feet then put smaller emitter I guess.

[Gtlevine]

I've been using drip for over a decade. 1 and 2gph pretty much cover any palm. Water goes on every 4 days.

Edited March 25, 2015 by Gtlevine

[KennyRE317]

i've been running 1gph/2gph drip emitters for a bit over a year now and everything seems to be doing well. most of my stuff is pretty newly planted so each palm gets 2 emitters, one on each side a few inches from the base. i think eventually when planting beds get more established i'll add a couple of adjustable micro sprinklers that shoot in 5 streams in different directions for better coverage

[Guest Dave L]

I have an all season greenhouse and I am using drip irrigation with a 1/4" soaker hose surrounding the base of the Palms.  My emitters are 6gph and while that may seem like a lot, I don't believe it throws out that much water since I have a single 1" line running threw my grow beds that must reach every plant.  This single line waters 10 palms and about 20 small tropical plants (they are on a .5gph emitter).  I am new to this and only planted the palms 2 months ago, so I am still tinkering with how much water to give ....at this time I water once/week and run it for one hour.  My soil drains very well so while it stays moist I don't believe it is over watered....however, I am not certain?  Any comments would be appreciated.

best regards

dave

[SailorBold]

  On 6/2/2020 at 9:54 PM, Dave L said:

I have an all season greenhouse and I am using drip irrigation with a 1/4" soaker hose surrounding the base of the Palms.  My emitters are 6gph and while that may seem like a lot, I don't believe it throws out that much water since I have a single 1" line running threw my grow beds that must reach every plant.  This single line waters 10 palms and about 20 small tropical plants (they are on a .5gph emitter).  I am new to this and only planted the palms 2 months ago, so I am still tinkering with how much water to give ....at this time I water once/week and run it for one hour.  My soil drains very well so while it stays moist I don't believe it is over watered....however, I am not certain?  Any comments would be appreciated.

best regards

dave

Expand  

I run mine everyday for an hour..  If the plants are doing well then its acceptable..  I dont think Id be able to run once a week unless I ran it for longer run time.. it would dry out too quickly... but you said your soil stays moist  Might be fine.. and then your weekly water would be the deep watering.. the plants would be the gauge ultimately.  I have decided to go to all flag drippers... the other pressure regulating emitters clog up on me too often with mineral build-up.. I assume a soaker hose would do the same..   I was reading an article saying something to the effect that if you deep water your palms they will be somewhat stressed and grow faster with alternating drought conditions..  As the years have gone by though.. I just water as much as I can here in the desert... and shut off the system for 3 months in winter.  I started with all 1-2 gph emitters.. and kept ramping up the time.. but Now I think my largest palms will benefit with more water still.  Its a pretty versatile system...even being able to create a mist-like spray to increase humidity levels with some of the more specialized emitters.  pretty neat stuff.. 

 

[WaianaeCrider]

Back 20+ years ago when I first planted 1 gallon palms I used a drip system.  Because of me being LAZY and not checking them over the years a number got stuffed up and didn't work.  I lost a lot of palms about 10 years ago.  I have a long sort of narrow lot 700' on the straights run w/the house up front.  I have two runs of 3/4" PVC along the long sides.  I use something like 30 battery operated water timers along both lines.  The trick is to be sure to check the batteries at least once a month to make sure palms are getting water.  I've been bad about that too.

From each water timer I run a length of 1/2" flexible black poly pipe to the palms and have switched from drippers to spray emitters. The come in either 90*, 180* or 360* patterns.  Big problem now is my local source has not answered their phone for 3 weeks.  I hope it's just a c-19 problem and they are still in business.

Right now I'm ordering from Amazon but not sure if they will have the same quality.  Order arrives tomorrow so I'll soon know.  I bought 500' of the poly pipe from HD last week for $40, but today they were out.  Maybe in next week.  Not only am I replacing the drippers I'm re-running all the poly pipe as the survivors are so much bigger than when first planted.  Attached is a picture of the 180* emitters I'm using.

And a Google Earth picture of my 2 acres.