Jim,

Please provide some info to make your orchard needs more understandable. What is your flow rate at 60 psi?

What is the vertical height from one end of the 300 foot slope to the other along your tree line? Is your water from a City or County supply or well or pond?

There are many types of drip systems with varying costs.
Search GardenWeb for Tree Irrigation, good reading. Aloha

lehua13, thanks for your reply. Sorry if my needs aren't more understandable, I'm new to drip irrigation and not sure what questions to ask. You are getting me started.

I have no idea what my flow rate at 60 psi is, how would I calculate this? Wouldn't that be determined by line size and psi?

The vertical slope of my orchard from the rear of my house where the water tap is to the top of the slope is app 20'. I'm aware that water pressure decreases by 1 psi for every 1' of vertical elevation. I'm planning on using a pressure compensated system. Am I on the right track here?

My water supply is a city water supply, I have a pressure regulator inside the house that maintains a constant 60 psi.

My thoughts on the drip system so far is to run my main feed off the outside faucet, going to a check valve, pressure regulator, filter and fertilizer dispenser, from there a main feed line will run vertically up the slope for 300', lateral feed lines will branch off of the main feed. I'm sure I'm overlooking something as I just started researching drip systems. I don't know what size main feed or lateral feed lines to use yet. I plan on watering app 100 trees.

Am I on the right track here? What am I overlooking?

Finding the flow rate is easy, take a 5 gallon bucket to your source faucet and run it for 1 minute. That will give your gallons per minute flow rate. You will also want to make sure you have a proper back flow preventer such as an atmospheric vacuum breaker on the faucet. With the flow rate you can figure what type of emitters and how many you can have.

I checked the flow rate, very consistent 6gpm. Is that good or bad?

Jim,

It is what you have to work with. For every foot of elevation you will lose approx. 0.5 psi. So in 20 feet you will lose 10 psi. At your house your system will experience 60 psi but at the end of you 300 feet of hill your system will feel 50 psi. This is plenty of pressure for a drip system. In fact you will have to regulate your pressure to 35 psi at the bottom to 25 psi at the top.If you have an emitter that is rated for 3 gph @ 35 psi or 0.05 gpm @ 35 psi, you could run 6 gpm x 0.8(80%) or 4 gpm/0.05 = 80 emitters on one zone. You would run the emitters for 20 minutes(0.05 gpm x 20 m) to place 1 gallon of water at each tree. In essence you would have to run a second mainline with valve for a second zone to irrigated the remaining 20 tree. This is a sample of the calcs you need to make system set up decisions. Change the emitter flow down to get all the trees on one zone but longer run time for the quantity of water at each tree. It is all based on your system flow rate and pressure and the flow rate of the emitter for that pressure. You my want to divide the lower half trees and the upper half trees into two zones to limit over watering the bottom versus the tops trees due to the elevation difference which equates to the pressure difference. JMHO Aloha

Lehua13, makes sense to me. Going to be a little bit of calculations but I don't see any problems there. Thanks! This is exactly the type of info I'm looking for.

I'm toying with the idea of taking water off a tap inside the basement and installing all the peripherals inside the house on a basement wall with the main feed(s) running thru the wall to the outside. All that would be outside would be the main feed line(s), laterals & emitters. This will make maintenance and winterization easy, plus pretty much eliminate theft or vandalism.

I want to install ball valves & quick disconnects between each component so I can remove a component for whatever reason, install a temporary splice line and be up and going with relatively no down time. Also putting pressure & flow gauges at several locations so I can monitor the system & easily diagnose problems.

Outside I want to use ball valves and quick disconnects at every lateral so I can perform maintenance on a section without taking the whole system off line.

Want to do something with the outside portion of the system so I can completely drain it and blow compressed air through it before the winter. Actually with the downhill slope, just uncapping the end of the main line should allow the system to drain itself.

I want to add a timer and flow control panel. Would be nice to use a dedicated laptop as the control & monitoring panel. Would be nice to be able to zone various parts of the system and control things from the pc, possibly monitor fertilizer application also. Anyone know of of software to do this?

Am I on the right track here? What am I overlooking?

None of this seems too difficult. The hardest part seems to be locating quality components, I'm seeing lots of cheap stuff, nothing looks really high end. I'm sure it's out there somewhere.

Jim - I've designed and put in lot's of home sprinkler systems for others who didn't know how so they wouldn't get "soaked" by a contractor. Most are older as I am and I don't charge anything. It would be my opinion that before you put in anything you need to be "Dead On" with respect to this project, be it a Business or a Private orchard. The thing is : You want a system of good quality, put in correctly, with the right equipment that conforms to your State code. There's nothing worse than using flimsy stuff you know is going to give you problems. For a few dollars more you can do better. The first thing I would do, as I do here, is to contact your State Cooperative Extension Service for referrals to internal specialists that have knowledge of watering systems in orchards. If applicable, your city will at least have a horticulturist on staff, your county the same. Also, I recommend you go look at some orchards in your State and talk to them about their system - the in's and out's. They'll know. You should also ask all about any State grants available or other assistance they may provide. Next, I would go up on the internet and do some searching concerning quality parts in your system. Generally, the company with the greatest warranty has the best quality, however here, I would strongly consider any recommendations you get from other orchard owners. Would they buy the same system again ?? Would they go to a different system ?? Any problems with parts ?? Any problems with the system doing what it needs to do ?? etc., etc. Also, each of these companies offers a service whereby they will design your system for you. The more common "flimsy" stuff does it for about $10 or $15 dollars. See what the top 2 would charge. You'd have to give them lot's of input to include gradient level, weather and so forth. Hopefully you'll find someone within your State, but in the end, their proposal MUST meet your State code for such things. The end.

Jim,

all sounds good. If you got the dough to make for easy maintenance that's great. Get three quotes from contractor local contractors and check out the differences in cost. Let them know you want quality first and cost is not a factor. After they stop drooling and you pick up your jaw from the floor, you will be able to compare local prices on some really quality systems and parts. Seriously, you may find a very good licensed contractor that can give you the answers you need and have a good warranty that can really take care of your quality anxiety and control the costs as well. If you have questions about what they say expound them here for a second opinion. Make sure you check with the BBB and state licensing board. JMHO Aloha