I’m about to try setting up drip irrigation for my fruit trees in containers for the first time. I’m thinking about getting the deluxe kit from Drip Depot, unless anyone has a better suggestion. I initially purchased the Raindrop container & basket kit, because it said it was suitable for watering 20 containers, but then after I looked at their instructions, I realized it really isn’t so, because they are suggesting 2 emitters for every container over 12” wide, and a lot of my containers are either near or over 12” wide, which means I’d probably be lucky to water 10 containers with the kit. The Drip Depot kit says it’s suitable for 30 trees. But unlike the raindrip kit it doesn’t include a timer, so I’ll have to try to figure out what’s the best timer to use myself.
Which brings me to my first question: is there some general rule to help us decide how many emitters to put in any given container? Going by the guidance provided by raindrip for their kit, I’d conclude 1 emitter for every 12” of width in the container. But I also saw a suggestion somewhere for 3 emitters in a half barrel.
Another thing I’m wondering about right now: for fruit trees in containers, is it better to use drip emitters or bubblers? From what I’ve learned so far it sounds like since the bubblers distribute water over a wider area, they are better for plants with extensive root systems, but I’m not really sure what that means in terms of container trees vs. in ground, since obviously in a container the root system is limited to the container size.
Last but not least, how can you make a drip system work best with containers where you top dress the fertilizer? I use the Osmacote slow release fertilizer pellets which I scatter on the surface of the soil of my container trees. I can’t really mix it with the soil without disturbing tree roots because the roots of my trees extend across the surface the surface. I’m concerned that with no overhead water the pellets aren’t going to get activated and the nutrients aren’t going to be absorbed by the root system effectively. For those of you using drip with containers, have you found this to be an issue? Is there any effective way to deal with it?
I use drip Depot buttons for my in grown trees and container (20 gallon) grow bags. They both work great and I haven’t had any issues.
I calculated the total amount of water and used 2 or 3 emitters per bag. Depending on your plant 1 may be OK but I think 2 or 3 was a good happy medium in terms of distribution and amount for me
For fertilizer I only have a few dozen in the grow bags so I just mix and apply it by hand
I have lots of thoughts on drip setups (as just a guy with a yard, not a professional in any way) and am planning on adding drip to my container trees this year. I’ve done a bit of research and talked to the (usually helpful) guys at Ace but don’t have any real life experience with drip to trees so maybe I’ll largely hold my tongue unless nobody with real world experience shows up.
I will say I have grown blueberries in grow bags with one emitter and no problems (except for the year the system broke).
the larger point I wanted to make is to feel free to venture from the kit. It’s really not hard once you get growing and I personally appreciate the freedom to do what I think makes sense and experiment
edit: oh and as for controllers, in my experience they’re all kind of fine to good, none are great and none have been a problem. So I don’t think it matters much, unless you’re trying to do some fancy WiFi business, then I have no opinion. I plan on getting one or two more hose-mounted timers this year and will probably get the cheapest or second cheapest option at whatever hardware store I’m at when I finally get around to it. Don’t worry about “the best”
drip depots customer service is top notch. even sending drawings back and forth for a small order. their youtube channel is top as well. honestly id just stick with spot spitters. they are simple, dont clog and mimic a slow overhead watering. i made my own controllers and valve boxes so i cant really comment on off the shelf stuff.
thanks for mentioning the spot spitter, I was not familiar with that type of emitter, though I did a bit of research and it sounds like it was the original emitter! It seems a lot of nurseries also use them for watering their container plants? Anyway it seems to address a couple of my concerns: getting the surface wet so my osmacote can be absorbed into the soil, and also bringing water to the entire root system of the container.
But I notice none of the starter kits I’ve looked at have spot spitters or even have a spot spitter option; every one I’ve seen just has drippers. I’m a little hesitant to try and build my own system from scratch without a kit because this is my first time trying to do drip and I have no idea what I’m doing. Maybe I could talk to Drip Depot about how best to customize the Deluxe Kit if I want to use the spitters?
What’s the scale you’re working with? I know a lot of people/places have a ton of calculations you need to do, but depending on scale in my experience it’s not necessary. If we’re talking a handful of containers, I say don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good and just get started. Maybe go to a local hardware store and ask for the drip guy, there always is one.
I ask for scale, though, because I don’t want to be encouraging rash behavior—you can have pressure issues so I’m not saying wire up a whole yard without thinking. That probably won’t work out. But I set up a 3x6 bed with inline emitters every 6 inches + a half dozen or so for containers with zero calculations and zero problems
Yes I’ve been trying to do some of the different calculations for gallons required for watering, etc. but it seems so complicated, I’m already baffled by drip in general and math isn’t my strong suit to begin with. I wish there was a simple worksheet I could use to figure some of this stuff out. Another issue is most of my trees have been up potted from smaller to much larger containers, so they aren’t actually using all the space in the container yet. Also I don’t know all the gallon measurements of all my pots, because I have some standard nursery pots and others from here there and everywhere. I tried to do an estimate on every pot anyway, though I’m sure it’s not 100% accurate, and I tried to err on the side of over-estimating rather than under-.
Here’s what I’ve come up with:
Essential container plants (fruit trees) : 25 pots, totaling 144 gallons (I did my calculations using soil volume rather than water, even for non-nursery pots, since that’s how nurseries seem to do it).
I also have a number of other containers but I didn’t include them because I don’t consider them in the essential category like my fruit trees. These are plants like peppers and tomatoes I grow seasonally, or starter plants grown from cuttings of older plants. I figure if I could add those to this system assuming my system can handle more, or set up a separate system for those at another time.
You could get something like this with 2 “stations” ie main output lines and then you can have two different watering programs for essential vs veggies and not have to worry about competing output (I haven’t used this brand, just trying to illustrate the idea)
in my example, I had ~40 emitters and didn’t observe any pressure issues. Again, I haven’t set up for trees in containers yet.
I just want to stress that it’s basically like playing with k’nex — you have a main line (think of it like your highway) and can have individual smaller lines (surface streets) running off that. Those surface streets can have emitters either in-line or each street ends with a building. You can swap out emitters (buildings) very easily, same goes for adding streets. It really doesn’t have to be set in stone, it’s very easy to iterate
Just send drip depot an email with detailed info and they will point you in the correct direction. Tell them you’d like to use spot spot spitters. And the rain bird supply lines aren’t the same diameters as everyone else’s supply lines. Also, get the twist lock style supply line connectors and thank yourself later.
Rainbird’s advantage is being widely available at like every Ace franchise ever around here and I’m a brick and mortar kind of guy. But if you can email them and they’ll get you set up, I’m all for that. My main point is just not to get in analysis paralysis and get going. Drip can be kinda fun if you let it
I had never looked up spot spitters before today, having found that the micro spray irrigation stakes I had purchased from Orbit had all offered me really good results and varying types of uses. Do spot spitters have an individual flow control built-in? I didn’t see anything that would allow that sort of adjustment, which is one of the things that I really appreciate about the spray stakes as it makes balancing the system and spray throw easy.
Spot spitters are great because they are simple and you don’t have to fidget with them. You have to use 1/8 inch tubing, though, which isn’t really a big deal. I have a lot of container plants on drip irrigation. It’s really freed me up to not have to water every day and so I can go on trips and not worry about the plants dying.
All of the drippers work fine and it just depends on what you are looking for. If you want to cover the entire pot surface area, then you can use the spot spitter that has 160 degree spray pattern and try to angle it so it sprays most of the pot. I like this 360 degree sprinkler thing as well for bigger pots https://www.dripdepot.com/adjustable-stream-dripper-stake-pattern-360-degree.
I use a wifi timer and its nice because I can adjust stuff when I’m out of town. In the summer I water in 3 min intervals almost every hour.
I used drip line with inline emitters, 1 gal/hr/emitter. Generally 5 emitters per tree to spread out the water, but these trees are in the ground, not containers. 3 seems fine for a container. I’m only running the system for 45 min to an hour, once or twice per week. I figure having more emitters and a shorter runtime makes clogs or other issues less likely.
I also really like those 360° spray stakes, on the smaller pots and hanging baskets they provide enough throw distance to manage the entire thing with just the one. If you are trying to cover more distance then I would suggest something like these:
have you experimented with the different types of spitters? I notice they now have short, tall, standard, and downspray. the way they describe the downspray spitters it sounds like those might be ideal for containers, even better than standard?
how does the 360 degree one work with small pots? I’m curious because I was thinking the same thing myself that if I could stick a 360 degree one near the trunk it would just water the whole container, and do so more effectively than a single 160. But looking at their color coded chart for the spot spitters they only recommend the 360 one for 36”-48” boxes - which is pretty huge! For small pots 1-3 gallons they are recommending we use the orange mini flow spitter for 160 or the grey mini flow for 90.
What I don’t quite understand is why they have so many options. Why would someone choose a 90 degree spitter over a 160? What would be the situation that made the 90 preferable? I’m having trouble imagining…
what exactly are the twist lock supply line connectors and what do they replace in the standard drip system? Why do you prefer them? I don’t yet know what any of these parts of are, so it will help me to know more for my research.