Question about drip line in raised beds

General Fruit Growing
1

Right now I have a number of 4x4x12 raised beds, each has one has one fruit tree in it, and around each tree is one loop of drip tube.

I have been trying to figure out how long I need to run the system, to completely saturate the bed, so that I can be sure that all of the roots within the space of the bed itself get water.

The beds are open at the bottom, but all I want to make sure of at the moment is that I can completely saturate the beds themselves since that is where so many roots are.

Today I ran the drip system 30 minutes at a time, trying to gauge when the beds would finally be saturated. After every 30 minutes I tested by attempting to drive a wooden skewer down at different points of each bed the entire 12” length.

I ended up running the system a total of two hours, and what I found was that after two hours, the beds with the youngest, least developed trees were totally saturated. I could easily drive the wooden skewer down at any point.

But this what not the case with the trees that are larger and have more extensive root growth. Even after two hours of the drip system running there were still lots of areas which stayed dry and hard, into which I could not push the skewer. I ended up having to do overheard watering to get those areas moist enough that the skewer would go in.

For those of you who are also using loops of drip tube to water your trees, how long do you usually need to water? After two hours should I still be having dry areas in my raised beds? Does it make sense to keep running the system more? I was so surprised at what I discovered after two hours that at this point I’m wondering if even after 3 or 4 hours those beds would have been totally saturated!

Does this mean I need to add more tubing to the beds with the more mature trees - is one loop not enough and I need two loops in those beds? Or what would be the best way to address this?

2

Drip tubing comes in many flavors. Usually, it’s a tube with a emitters spaced along it at some interval. Each emitter gives however much volume of liquid for every unit of time (usually listed as gallons or litres per hour). Sometimes this varies depending on the pressure in the system, sometimes not. Check the labeling of your specific tubing to see if the numbers make sense compared to how much water you would expect to have to spray with a hose or watering can to get it wet enough.

Also consider the positioning of the emitters themselves - it might have had problems soaking around established roots or harder packed soil in the established beds. You might also consider what time you are running the system and whether evaporation is a factor. Even a drip system will wet things better when it’s cool and dark than hot and sunny.

But as a rule, no, running a drip system for more than two hours isn’t unreasonable. It’s better to occasionally water deeply than frequently water lightly.

Finally, there’s no reason you can’t just add more emitters / tubing to the beds that need it. Probably easier than running it too long and drowning your other beds.

1 Like
3

As @PlantingOaks said, total water is a function of output and run time. As I recall in the other thread you said you were emailing dripdepot, they may be able to help you with the output if you’re having trouble/it’s not as easy as “well, I have 10 1gal/hr emitters”

In addition to what they mentioned, I’m wondering if you have clogs or broken emitters or if the bed was like bone dry and needs to get saturated/rehydrated and it’s not so much about “maintenance” run times. Or if it’s something as simple as the hose isn’t all the way open or something