I was installing some drip tubing today and thought of this post. I thought I’d put my two cents in.
Your quote,
I recently read that one weakness of using the ring is it may not get water close enough to the trunk for a young still growing tree, and I also read that for trees in a row it is better to use a double line system.
The water coming from the emmiters in the drip tubing doesn’t go straight down, but it spreads out through capillary action. Like a cone. If you see where it drips and then dig down a little you will see water has radiadted outward and creating a band. My suppliers would tell me the width of the band will be about the same distance that the emmiters are spaced. So my drip tubing with 24" emitter spacing will lay a band down the row about 24" wide. It sometimes looks dry on top of the mulch, but damp below it. So it doesn’t need to be right up to the tree, just close. Two lines are not necessary. Maybe if you have sandy soils, ours is a silt loam to clay. It doesn’t hurt to use two, but would cut you run time down. I’ve always found one line is plenty.
I ran some 1" lay flat tubing as my main line, and 1/2" pressure compensating drip tubing for my laterals.
I have some areas that get heavy pressure for water from some neighboring trees in the tree line. One is a pig nut hickory 4’ in diameter and a 30" walnut. They suck up all the water. In those locations I want extra water so I add and extra emitter to that tree and other times I use a ring.
I used this punch and put a 1/2 gph emitter into the tubing. Usually right at the trunk. Just adding a little extra water. I think my peaches need a little extra so I may add one extra emitter if its in the same row as apples.
I use these rings sometimes, they add expense but work well and will deliver a lot more water around the tree. I use the 1/2" tubing, and a tee. The tee end is smaller for the 6mm Rainbird emitter tubing that I create the loop with. They aren’t easy to remove if you need to.
At the end of the lateral lines I make a little pig tail loop. The tubing naturally wants to lay like this and that gives the last tree a little extra moisture, since the tubing doesn’t continue on past it. You could create loops in this fashion. Here I ran out of drip tubing, so I used regular poly and punched in 3 1/2 gph emitters.
As tree mature you may have to increase your run times. The key is to not let it dry up, and give them enough moisture and the roots will find it and distribute it out to the whole tree.
I use PC tubing and not tape. Tape has a lesser mil value and is less permanent. Crows will come in and poke holes in the tape, just for a drink or a shower. Knowing them maybe just to aggravate me. I’ve seen them poke a hundred holes in an afternoon where I use to work. The tubing is much more durable for orchards long term needs. It will last for years. I think tubing is 45 mil and tape is as low as 5 or 7 mil.
I also use 1/2" poly and punch in the emitters at each tree in some areas, 2 per apples 18" apart, and 3 for peaches. It works pretty well, but is more expensive and time consuming. I put the lay flat tubing and laterals in on 13 rows last Thursday and it only took 3 hours. If it wasnt drip tubing I’d have to go back and punch in 120 emitters. Big time saver.
I’m watering 175 trees at a time, and the system is feed with 200’ of 3/4" garden hose, with the pressure turned up at the well to a 40-60psi cycle. Plenty of water to spare. I will run the drip tubing about 8 hours a week in long sets and my tall spindle apple trellis 2 hours every other day if needed.
You said you never installed drip and this is how I do it. There are a lot of way to do it, and none are perfect or fit everyones needs.
Good luck.
