Drip irrigation - I don't like it

This is just a heads up to those who've not tried it.

I've been growing on coir and decided it'd be cool if I could just set my system up to drip through all day while the light was on.

But man... those drippers are a pain in the ass to get running smoothly! I think mine are from All Season Gardeners (ASG) and they're micro drippers. They're running on gravity from a nutrient tank about a meter higher up.

First of all, the lowest settings are already high enough that you don't really want them running all day, which means coming back to turn them on and off.

Making fine adjustments to the drip rate is difficult, it's either off or way too quick a lot of the time.

They're not all the same. Turning one a few clicks open will make it flow way quicker than another.

The next issue is watering homogeneity, the drippers tend to create a more focused column of water directly beneath them instead of all through the soil.

But the most annoying problem is consistency. Once air gets into them, some of them really don't like being turned back on by a valve futher down the line, they don't restart. So you can be thinking it's running for days before you realize something is up.

Personally, if I was considering them again I'd use a pump and probably replace the drippers with sprays high enough up from the surface of the soil that they covered most of the area.

I liked the idea of using coir because it allows me to also use things like mycorrhizal fungi on the roots, which would be harder with a 100% liquid based system.

No doubt some of you already have experience with this. I figured I'd post it up since people are constantly trying to find the best way to run a setup and, while this one has been working out, it's not been without my attention on a regular basis.

love that attitude bud. simple hydro is much better. Work smarter not harder. scrooge mcduck. i totally agree. I do no work and get the same outcome as many of the growers on here. alot of bud!!!! good luck next time man!!!

...those drippers are a pain in the ass to get running smoothly! I think mine are from All Season Gardeners (ASG) and they're micro drippers. They're running on gravity from a nutrient tank about a meter higher up.

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First of all, gravity feed isn't the best method. You aren't going to get the same flow rate or pressure (head) from that kind of setup as you would from a nice sized pump.

...the lowest settings are already high enough that you don't really want them running all day, which means coming back to turn them on and off.

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If you ran a pump instead of a gravity feed system then you could get a 24hr timer with 15 min increments, $20.00 at walmart. Problem solved.

Making fine adjustments to the drip rate is difficult, it's either off or way too quick a lot of the time.

They're not all the same. Turning one a few clicks open will make it flow way quicker than another.

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Go get 2gph self cleaning, pressure compensating drip emitters. They're about .45 cents each and they work well. You may have to clean them once in a while but that's to be expected. That would solve that problem.

Personally, if I was considering them again I'd use a pump and probably replace the drippers with sprays high enough up from the surface of the soil that they covered most of the area.

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You've obviously already considered the fact that you don't have the best representation of a proper drip irrigation setup. I say, don't make a judgement on drip irrigation until you've tried it with a pump, timer, and the right drip emiters. You could always go with ebb and flow, but you'd need a pump and timer for that as well.

go dwc sit back and relax. To the plant its the same thing. Steady nutrient supply with oxygenated water and no root bind. What else is there? I can easily control everything and no parts except for an airstone. DWC can easily get one gram watt with most strains. Dwc grows bigger roots than any method also.

If anyone thinks their roots are huge i want pics for proof please just to verify

Using a pump with drippers might be a plan, although they easily drip quickly enough with the gravity setup to have it turning into a puddle under the pots. The only gain would be the time control.

I'd go for sprayers because, if you have a good free draining media (which you'll want to encourage aeration with solid media), the drippers seem to go straight out the bottom quite easily with all the water focused in one spot.

I might check out some more liquid based methods next time round. The coir is good because you can infect it with symbiotic fungi that live on the roots (comes as gravel you sprinkle around the rootbase). About 80% of wild plants have it on their roots. It's scientifically proven that they live symbiotically with the plant, passing it normally insoluble nutrients (fungi can 'digest' them out the media) in exchange for carbon, and that plants grow significantly stronger and produce more when they have the root fungi present. The symbiosis also protects them from water loss and things like that caused by salt build up. Solid media also produces an excellent stability with big plants and keeps everything easy to treat separately.

Flushing is probably the more annoying aspect, but it's not really that much harder than it would be for liquid.

But drippers, I'm not so sure about.

I used drip for my first hydro crop and the results were stunning. I found it simple and it took about ten minutes a day and flushing once a week.

Use a pump. I had my pump going 15 minutes on and 45 minutes off during vegetative and a half hour on and a half hour off during flowering.



This photo is 37 days into flowering. There are six plants on this drip tray.

My results were so stunning that I am going with drip again during Veg and going with ebb and flow for flowering. The effort to yield ratio is so low I would be crazy not to.

One more thing, if your power goes out for a day or two with drip, they dont die like they might with aero or dwc.

Peace V

-GTS

PS, use a pump

Those plants look very nice. You obviously know the drip method. I would try it but don't want to clean nozzles or worry about overwatering or underwatering but damn those are nice plants. Check out my hempstar plants the pics are 20 days into flowering. There on about day 27 now and have really filled out alot. Either hydro method obviously works. good luck man.

dupe, sorry

1982grower said:

Those plants look very nice. You obviously know the drip method. I would try it but don't want to clean nozzles or worry about overwatering or underwatering but damn those are nice plants. Check out my hempstar plants the pics are 20 days into flowering. There on about day 27 now and have really filled out alot. Either hydro method obviously works. good luck man.

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Actually, I know almost nothing about the drip method. I never cleaned the nozzles and never worried about overwatering. I had two bubble stones running in the resevoir continually and added a tablespoon of hydrogen peroxide twice a week to keep the solution sterile. Overwatering isnt a problem with drip if you use hydroton and a little common sense. I didnt have the drip emitters dripping directly onto my rockwool cubes so they werent continually soaked, just damp. Once the plants get a little bigger, it is irrelevent how wet the rockwool cube is.

It definitely works, I'm just thinking about all those tweaks and stuff people constantly make to try and get it all as simple and efficient as possible. The drippers require too much fiddling at times for me. They work, the question is, are they as easy or as effective as something else? I think sprays would produce more even soil moisture levels, I just wanted to avoid buying a decent pressure and lifespan pump after spending so much on other things.

Sativa dominats (hawaiian snow, greenhouse seeds). 3 gal pots, 1kw sunmaster S.hps, ionic grow solution, pH about 5.8. Fungi on roots. Just starting to flower. Quite a bit taller than they look, maybe 4.5 / 5ft?

All I can suggest is switch from coco fibre to hydroton and get a pump. Much less work.

Instead of using single emitters, make your own drip rings with 1/4" tubing and 1/4" tees. Just assemble into a ring and drill 5 or six 1/8"holes around the ring. Use a strong pump (296 gph or more for 12 or more sites) Its easy, economical and you can feed the plant 360 degrees, a more effective use for your nutrient solution. Plus if you use the Orbit 8-way splitters, it is easy to adjust the flowrate to site.

Another aspect of drip that is overlooked sometimes is the ease of maintenance. Flushing is a snap.
I wouldn't reccomend drip for rockwool though.

Shluppy said:

Instead of using single emitters, make your own drip rings with 1/4" tubing and 1/4" tees. Just assemble into a ring and drill 5 or six 1/8"holes around the ring. Use a strong pump (296 gph or more for 12 or more sites) Its easy, economical and you can feed the plant 360 degrees, a more effective use for your nutrient solution. Plus if you use the Orbit 8-way splitters, it is easy to adjust the flowrate to site.

Another aspect of drip that is overlooked sometimes is the ease of maintenance. Flushing is a snap.
I wouldn't reccomend drip for rockwool though.

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Yeah, exactly, I should have done this, and would recommend anyone else thinking about emitters does the same.

I tweaked them around for a good while recently but when flushing day came it arrived with my nemesis, dry fk'ing soil in two of the pots. They're just way too picky about when they decide to stop working.

I do think a major issue is that I turn them on and off with a tap near the tank. When they're off, I think air can bleed back into them and their line. When I turn them on, I think the head of pressure from the tank is too low, under gravity alone, to clear the air pockets from some of the drippers, so the others start and let the pressure off and the air pocket infected ones never make it.

But still, the emitters themselves focus water too much in one spot for my liking, the rings with holes in them are a far better idea.

They're workable, but you'll definitely want some decent water pressure (1 bar / 1.5 bar?) to avoid air pockets jamming them up and you should really consider the ring of tube idea, sprays or sprinklers in my opinion.

If I wasn't so close to the end point of this harvest, I'd change them, i may still do it since i have some dripper line tubing left.

I still like the idea of using coir since it lets me do the whole fungi infected roots things very easily. First time with it though, so I'll have to see how it turns out yield wise - it's fattening up.

Upgraded to drip rings.... far, far better!