In case anyone want’s to talk about “budget unfriendly” designs…
First, a link to the photos I have. As with every project, I wish I documented more.
I will say, the biggest cost is labor. I removed all labor from the equation, but I used a lot of my own, and my wife’s. All in all we started this project in July and we are just finishing up. But that’s mostly due to life just getting in the way. So far I’m happy with it.
Here’s the basics:
My orchard is in the corner of my lot, with a weeping willow (Cyan W) at the corner, which is a 90° corner. There are three arcs with radii of 60 ft, 80 ft, and 100 ft from the willow. 5 trees on the inner arc, 6 on the middle, and 8 on the outer. There are also two trellises (red), one on each side of the 80ft arc for Ponca blackberries and tomatoes. Each fruit tree has different water requirements based on ripening time, fruit type, etc.
I wanted a system that can be fully automated, since I do not live at the lot yet. That means each tree is its own zone with a RainBird irrigation valve. I wanted the system to bee freeze-resistant, so we trenched the mainlines about 2-feet deep at a minimum.
The green lines are the mainlines. 1" black poly pipe with double Oetiker ear clamps on every fitting. I also used a torch to soften the pipe when clamping. Every. Single. Fitting.
The orange lines are the shallow 3/4" PVC cross lines. Where the orange and green lines meet, there is a tee intersection on the mainline with a vertical riser of polypipe. That riser ends in a valve box with two valves, one for each tree flanking the box. What you can’t see in the interior picture of the valve box is the mainline riser, but it it hitting a PVC tee at the apex of the splitter I cobbled together.
The PVC runs to the tree about three feet from the trunk, and terminates in a 1/2" threaded vertical PVC riser. You can attach whatever you want to that riser, I’m using a 1/2" elbow that feeds a spiraling loop of dripline around the tree. As they get bigger I can change the configuration for each tree.
The video of a snake I was chasing actually shows a decent view of the crosslines.
The Purple dot is a sprinkler for the grassy area between the willow and the first line of fruit trees. The three orange lines on the inside that don’t lead to trees are stub-outs for eventual planter boxes.
I used 18/3 irrigation wire, one line to each box, all leading back to a shed with the controller system installed. And yes, I made my wife help continuity test the wire before we buried it by running a 9volt battery through it and licking the wires…