Drip irrigation has its roots in agriculture, and in today's markets, drip irrigation is used extensively in agriculture, commercial landscaping and residential gardening.
What is Drip irrigation?
Drip Irrigation is the slow application of water directly to the plant's root zone. Drip Irrigation can provide optimum moisture level in the soil at all times, resulting in less water lost to the sun and wind. With drip irrigation water is not wasted on non-growth areas, and the root zone is maintained at a steady moisture level, combining the proper balance of water and air for a very efficient irrigation system.
Unlike drippers, micro sprinklers throw the water over a wide area, and are designed to be used in areas where drippers are not practical, such as large areas of ground cover or flower beds. Like drippers, micro sprinklers have many of the same benefits, resulting in abundant foliage and less water use. Low volume irrigation offers some key advantages and benefits to both contractors and home owners.
Conventional irrigation systems rated sprinklers system flow rate in gallons per minute. Drip irrigation flow rates are rated in gallons per hour. For example a pop-up lawn sprinkler may be rated at 1 to 5 GPM (gallons per minute), or 60 to 300 GPH (gallons per hour). Drip emitter would be rated at .5 to 4 GPH (gallon per hour); a micro sprinkler might be rated at 6 to 45 GPH (gallons per hour).
With conventional sprinkler systems, water can be lost through runoff, evaporation, blown away by wind, or wasted on non-growth areas. Using drip irrigation system, water is absorbed slowly into the soil, directly into the root zone of the plant, and no water is wasted on non-growth areas. By watering near the plant root zone for longer period of time, and not as often you use much less water, this method of watering causes the water to go deeper into the soil and helps to promote the plants' roots to grow downward and not just laterally, as they would with shallow watering.
Another important feature of drip irrigation is the lower flow rate of a drip system enables to water a larger area using a single water source. Lower flow from each dripper equals to a larger watering area from a single watering zone.
For example: average households outside faucet can have enough water for up to 600 to 900 1-GPH dripper
Another advantage of using a drip system is that you do not need high pressure to operate the system. Drip systems are recommended to operate at 10 to 30 PSI. For comparison, conventional sprinkler system operate in a 40 to 70 PSI and the average houses water pressure are anywhere from 40 PSI to 100 PSI.
One benefit is that you do not have to worry about a pressure drops and water flow in your household just because the drip system has turned on. Because of the low operating pressure that drip systems used, the poly tubing and all other components that used with drip system do not require glue, clamps or special tools, also the lower operating pressure allow the system to last longer. In fact, most of the components of a drip system can be moved or reused,
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