Le Potager du Sloth: Gardening without fatigue more than Bio

[Adrien (ex-nico239)]

Since we are talking about water, and as I do not have a vegetable garden at the moment, I am documenting myself upstream of the future vegetable garden (which is getting bigger and bigger ... with an orchard too)

Have we already talked about sprinkler irrigation systems here? Have any of you tried?

By the I mean fairly economical systems, like oscillating sprinklers, lawn sprinklers, etc.

Obviously the idea is in vegetable gardens of "large" surfaces (more than 50m²), to do without a targeted watering as much as possible, but without resorting to drip (on which there is already a plethora of information from all over).

I have found different models (like cellfast, gardena, etc.) which water very large areas, but whose flow rates are low. Typically an oscillating lawn sprinkler covers roughly 100m², but sending only 15L / min!
However, at the times when we need watering, we can consider that we need 6mm (classic FTE value of a summer day?) Per m², or 6L per day (data on my new region), or 600L per day.
If we water every 4 days, it would therefore be necessary to balance 2,5M3 by rounding, at each watering. Which means watering a little less than 3h (2,7h).
This is where it seems interesting to me: an oscillating sprinkler, planted at the top of a stake in the middle of the vegetable garden, that would water the said vegetable garden in 3 hours every 3 to 4 days (these are the orders of magnitude that interest us ). It seems much easier than installing a drip, which also consumes a lot more materials, right?

If you couple it to a simple programmer, it almost becomes a dream?

At the beginning for lack of time I only watered by sprinkling.

I came back from there.

For the tomatoes there was no photo between a sprinkling year and a year 0 water from above including rain and dew.
The feet are much more durable.

We can say the same thing for zucchini but there, given the hyper productivity of the thing, unless you have only one foot it is less serious if it rolls over a little early because in general you are fed up with it. eat

Potatoes: agata and mona lisa, it destroyed them (mildew) too quickly (+ agata than mona) for my taste.

In summary I would advise against.

In addition you can easily get away with watering on the ground
You can easily put an apple to reduce the flow
The only constraint is to move the pipe

In any case this year I will not water anything by sprinkling

[Doris]

[
For the tomatoes there was no photo between a sprinkling year and a year 0 water from above including rain and dew.
The feet are much more durable.

We can say the same thing for zucchini but there, given the hyper productivity of the thing, unless you have only one foot it is less serious if it rolls over a little early because in general you are fed up with it. eat

Potatoes: agata and mona lisa, it destroyed them (mildew) too quickly (+ agata than mona) for my taste.

In summary I would advise against.

If we use sprinkling, it is in my opinion sparingly, and at the hottest time of the day. I managed to prolong my potatoes last year thanks to that, when they were seriously hungry, and other crops as well. As explained above, I had another problem, it was to have underestimated the rate of mineralization of my sandy soil. This year I will charge more, and I will see.

[Rajqawee]

Ok.

But if it takes several hours (we often quote about ten) for the fungus responsible for late blight to develop, watering in the early morning should do absolutely nothing to the plants, right?

The wind, I imagine that it becomes a constraint. But if we cross several sprinklers ...

Another question: what is the cost per m² of a drip installation? Let's say, for at least 50m². It is a given that I did not find anywhere, expressed like that anyway.

[Doris]

Does it seem like six o'clock? At a temperature around 25, but I'm not very sure there, I only know that in the middle of the dungeon there is no entry door through droplets for mildew, that's why I 'use the sprinkler at the very beginning of the afternoon.
For the cost of the drip: it depends on the system, the number of drippers, etc., this year it will be weeping pipes, with the fittings and what is needed in addition for the installation, I'm about one euro per linear meter.

[Rajqawee]

Does it seem like six o'clock? At a temperature around 25, but I'm not very sure there, I only know that in the middle of the dungeon there is no entry door through droplets for mildew, that's why I 'use the sprinkler at the very beginning of the afternoon.
For the cost of the drip: it depends on the system, the number of drippers, etc., this year it will be weeping pipes, with the fittings and what is needed in addition for the installation, I'm about one euro per linear meter.

Interesting, can you specify Doris per m²? And an estimated lifespan?

[stephgouv]

It seems to me it's more like six o'clock? At a temperature of around 25, but I'm not very sure there, I only know that in the middle of the dungeon there is no entry door through droplets for mildew, ...

I think in one of the videos, Didier talks about a temperature between 12 and 18 ° C for several hours (from 6 to 10 a.m.) if my memory serves me correctly.

[Did67]

Seen on France 3 this melon producer with his soil moisture tester (?)

This is "tensiometry": tensiometers (probably; it can also be capacitive probes but Watermark is rather the specialist for tensiometers).

Either the link is wired or wireless (you can have, as for the weather forecast, a station in your living room and monitor the state of soil moisture).

This is what I suggest you do instead of watering like pissing calves! Manually (direct reading, digital or analog).

[Did67]

If you couple it to a simple programmer, it almost becomes a dream?

No, no!

Because wetting the entire surface is not economical! The whole surface will evaporate, thus losing water. The best thing is to create an underground wet "bulb", to use the earth as a water buffer, and therefore to wet at the base of the plant. And elsewhere, the earth (or worse, the blanket) must remain dry. Otherwise, it will lose this water by evaporation.

The second risk is that of disease. We know (well, those who follow the evolution of knowledge) that downy mildew is a cousin of algae and needs water droplets to germinate. For all sensitive plants, sprinkling is to give it a real helping hand.

However, nothing is ever simple, sprinkling can be interesting: refreshing vegetables sensitive to water / heat stress, such as lettuce, which then rise. We can therefore calm their rising ardor by refreshing them as we fog citizens in public places! And even some diseases seem "calmed": powdery mildew. There would be "washing" of the spores on the leaves. The rains are then considered favorable.

In short, we must ... choose and find the compromise.

If we have the pressure and a programmer, yes, it is automated. And yes, it takes several hours !!! Otherwise, an ultra-frequent case, we wet 2 cm of soil, which evaporates in the hours that follow. And we pissed in a violin! Scratch at your beauf's house when he has finished watering and he may be surprised.

[Rajqawee]

I continue my questions / my approach, because I think there is something to dig.

My reflection is to calculate the relevance of sprinkler systems over their entire lifespan. Because even if it consumes 20% more water (figure out of nowhere. This is an example.), But it cost 200 € less to set up, it does not say that overall we are good (financially in this case), especially if its lifespan is significantly less.

I don't think mildew is an insurmountable problem if we consider that watering is done in less than 3 hours, at the toughest times of the season: it will dry out in less than an hour afterwards, especially if we water in early morning. Anyway, is it worth thinking about it?

Concerning the loss of efficiency: is it total? Finally, the potential evapotranspiration depends in particular on the heat index, itself integrating relative humidity. If we sprinkle the plants, wouldn't that be so much water that they don't need to draw from the soil to ... sweat? We created a kind of island of relative humidity, which would decrease the ETP?

Finally, if we look at the large cultivated areas, such as corn, the sprinkling solution is often chosen. There is of course the aspect of impossibility to put a drip because of the mechanized work, but that proves that the solution is viable on this scale?

Attention, I bring a nuance: I do not doubt that the drip is a solution which ... irrigates better. I'm simply saying that between the cost (which I would like to find data on per m²!), The location and the lifespan, it should be compared to other systems.

[Did67]

For the cost, the orders of magnitude are quickly seen: the crown of 100 ml of pipes with integrated drippers is worth, retail / private, of the order of 100 € TTC. Or 1 € incl.tax per ml.

It lasts for years (unless you don't filter and it gets clogged!).

But indeed, the big advantage of sprinkling is that it moves easily. The major downside is that it takes pressure.

If you are working in 20 cm spacing, you will need, on 1 m², 5 ml (5 lengths of 1 m). Or 5 € per m². Plus the fittings - which are not given ...

After that, of course, no system is perfect. So none is "all rotten". These are tradeoffs - once again.

But beware of comparisons with farmers: on the one hand, it is not a question of observing that they irrigate by sprinkling - indeed, generally, except for market garden crops in the open fields, they have no choice, given the surfaces ... and on the other hand accusing them of wasting so much water. Or to use fungicides (organic or not) ...