Part one explains how to manage and maintain a microirrigation system - irrigating at the right times, and with the right amount of water. Part two gives exceedingly detailed recommendations for maintaining pumps, motors, and engines.
Available through the NCAT Sustainable Agriculture Project: The California Microirrigation Pocket Guide
- Rick VanVranken
Thanks to Gene McAvoy in FL for the heads-up on this publication.
Table of Contents
1.System Management & Maintenance
-Microirrigation Basics: Advantages, disadvantages, layout, types of emitters.
-Determining How Much Water to Apply: Using historical and real-time ET information, DIY methods.
Includes tables for many crops and regions.
-Determining Your Application Rate: Using flowmeters, direct measurement, or pressure measurement.
-Determining How Long to Run Your System: Applying a desired depth of water or number of gallons per plant.
-Monitoring Soil Moisture: How soils hold water, choosing the right monitoring method, tips and suggestions.
-Measuring Water in Plant Tissues: How pressure chambers work, guidelines for interpreting pressure chamber readings for some orchard crops.
-Maintaining Your System: Checking for leaks, cleaning filters, flushing lines, preventing and solving clogging problems; options for organic growers.
-Chemigation: Rules, regulations, guidelines, and precautions; table of incompatibilities related to fertilizers.
-Salinity: Salinity basics, patterns under drip irrigation, coping strategies. -Resources for California Irrigators: Federal and state agencies, non-profit organizations, universities, and consultants.
-Glossary of Microirrigation Terms
2.Pumps, Motors, & Engines
-Recommended Installations: Centrifugal and turbine pumps, control panels.
-Pumping Plant Maintenance: Electric motors, control panels, engines, and centrifugal or turbine pumps; includes a troubleshooting guide.
-Saving Energy: Causes of wasted energy, hardware improvements, understanding your power bill, working with your utility.
-Conversions and Formulas: Flow, volume, weight, length, area, temperature, pressure, power, electrical usage, head loss, and water velocity. Also a simple way to estimate pumping plant efficiency.
