how much water and how much water pressure is available? you may not be able to irrigate the full acre at the same time but you should be able to use t-tapes without a problem and do sections at a time.

We have a farm with a huge water pump, so pressure is there. I was meaning t-tapes when i said drip irrigation. I was wondering about doing sections. How much would you think a section should be? My beds are 50 foot long by four foot wide. There are four end to end and 12 side by side, to make up a large rectangle garden. the rest is rotated with corn and squash and other larger crops that don't really need to be irrigate with drip. so the tape would run a little over 200 feet on level ground. I figure that I need four lines per bed to water correctly. how many lines do you think one section should be?

you have to use a pressure reducer. i think mine is 10 or 12 lbs. i can irrigate 800' with t-tape with no problem. i think thats the most i've done at one time. the fittings are very easy to take on and off making it easy to experiment with different set ups.

I think I've had eight 300' rows running with no problem. My tap water is 30-40psi and I have a 10 lb regulator. I was using 1" header line.

Sounds like my situation and I use t tape. Set it up so you can do half at a time. It works better that way.

Thanks guys. I really appreciate the advice. I have been wanting to do the drip t-tape for a while. The last few years have been a pain in the rear watering the larger garden.

We do rund 3 acres of 4' x 100 beds on drip irrigation. have the area divided into 4 sections. Our pressure is something like 5 gallons a minute, not great but more than enough for drip irrigation,

Boulderbelt, about how many lines do you have per section?

I have 52 beds of 48 feet long and 2 areas on the far edges of this rectangle that are 156x 25 and 100 x15. The 52 beds average 3 tapes per bed= 156; and the two other areas have just 3 or 4 (vining plants that spill out into the field) of 100 feet long. So 52 beds and one of the big areas is watered at a time. Sometimes I water it all at once but for a longer time. My original tubing is getting holey so I am replacing it this spring with 3/4 inch and all new punched holes.
As for how many actual tapes per bed, that depends on the crop.
4- corn and onions
2- tomatoes, peppers, perennials like herbs, summer squash, legumes sometimes
3- everything else

Even with the set up of doing 1/4 acre at a time, I find the farthest areas are not as wet.

I ordered t tape from dripdepot.com better prices and free shipping. I am ready for next spring irrigation

Great! Thank you, Little minnie! It really helps.

The last place I bought drip tape was Morgan County Seed in western Missouri. Their prices are low as well. For a lot of supplies, shipping costs end up determining which company is cheaper. I end up buying from whoever is closest to me.

Glad I could help. I have purchased from various suppliers. The product at Berry Hill was far superior. I am not replacing my tapes this year!

The only points I want to add are: 1. know what you water source any readily provide for the output you plan to irrigate. If you have a well providing 10 gal/min. you will need to limit lines and time of irrigation accordingly.

2. All t-tapes are different in emitter spacing and water output, etc.. Determine the best product for your situation. Some tapes also have pressure compensating feature if you are not on level terrain.

3. You may want to pre-rig header lines for section watering or you can have control valves for each indiv. tape at a header. The indiv valves are ~$2 each and reusable so you may want to start with those. I'd recommend the ones that can be turned on without tools.

4. Moisture loss is minimized when you lay the driptape under plastic. I'd strongly recommend you consider both as compliments.

That's a good point. I have to use mulch of some sort, or else the irrigated ground grows weeds faster than I can remove them.

bmoser, thank you.

We have limited the size of our gardens to 50x100. 100 long runs of drip tape are easy to put down and you know how far a roll will go. We have a header pipe made of that 3/4" black irrigation line, and parts we get at menards to hook it to the garden hose. Definitely get the shut off valves for each row. It's really handy in the spring when you're putting the transplants out, you can turn on the row and water each one in as you're planting them, without watering the rest of the garden that doesn't need it. And as you pull out a crop, you can quit watering it. We also use those little fold-over closures on the far ends of the lines, away from the header pipes. you can also tit them in a knot and allow some extra line there so if you get any clogs, fertilizer buildup, etc in the lines you can cut it off and flush the lines. That's why we use the fold over closures. We get them from E and R in Monroe Indiana. They are amish and will send you a catalog if you call their service.Their phone number is 866-510-3337
For mulch, we use the dewitt 7 year groundcover in 15.5' wide. we pin it down over the whole garden once we till it up real good. Then you turn on the water line, feel for the plumpness of the drip tape so you don't cut it, and make slits to plant your transplants through. We leave the ground cover down all winter, so far the one garden has been 5 years and it's still down. We don't clean off the plant debris from last year until the spring, then we use a leafblower and push broom and sweep it into a pile and haul it to the compost pile with the truck.
Also since we have the greenhouse, we have fertilizer injectors, so we can run fish emulsion, or water soluble fertilizers through the drip tape to help keep the veggies growing. try to fertilize about once a week and it varies from crop to crop what they like, so with the shut offs I can turn off the peppers when I'm doing the tomatoes, etc which is handy.

Here is a link that might be useful: garden

This post was edited by sandy0225 on Thu, Nov 6, 14 at 7:47

Sandy,
shut off valves, what a great idea! thanks for the information.