This has been a multi year background project that I tinker with occasionally. I've mentioned this in the `what habitat work did you do today` thread, but its getting far enough along I'll start a thread on it.
General property info:
71 acres, 31 ag, 40 of native
my property is off grid. I have DIY'd solar on the garage and the deer blind, starlink on the garage, and 1500 feet point to point wifi link between the garage and the deer blind. There's reolink security cameras in the garage and the blind, with about 1000 feet of cat6 networking cable burried around the blind for POE cameras.
But this project...
I've been staring at the creek by the blind for a few years wanting to irrigate the food plot. Over the last couple years I've done occasional small experiments sorting out what might work. The creek goes dry in the summer, but I think I can deal with that, when I get to the point where that's my main irrigation problem.
Early assumptions:
Normal high pressure irrigation would be a pain with dirty water. The orifices are too small and plug to easily. Filtering it that finely I expect would turn into a never ending chore. I think I need to use higher volume, lower pressure irriagion. So I figured using a sump pump makes more sense than a typical higher pressure "irrigation" or "swimming pool" style pump.
Current situation:
I've been torn between simple & reliable, just doing flood irrigation where lengths of tubing carry water then dump it on the ground, vs trying to get by with some larger orifiace sprinklers.
I've been playing with some wobbler style sprinkler heads that so far look promising. Early testing with a single one, connected to the sump pump with 20 yards of 3/4 tubing worked well. With no filtering on the water, it usually worked ok. But it did plug several times (small stick, leaf, minnow, crawfish). It seemed like the problem was always things in or by the pump when it started. One the pump starts, if the sprinkler isn't immediately plugged, it works ok.
So I recently got the trencher back out, and burried more tubing. All tubing is 3/4" (some pex, some irrigation turbing; just using whatever I had). All tubing is straight runs from the manifold to the sprinkler heads.
I got a strainer (open filter) intended for a swimming pool pump. I'm hoping it will catch the big stuff that will plug up the sprinkler nozzles without being so restrictive I have to clean it often.
I started with a 4 pack of those wobbler heads. I have 6 pieces of burried tubing, so 2 don't have heads on them yet. But I was encouraged that the 4 sprinklers ran great even with the other two tubes open (dumping water on the ground without restriction). So I have some headroom on the pump capacity.
I have a wifi connected smart switch to turn on the pump from my phone. So I can be sitting at my desk at home (I work from home), and bring up the cameras live feed, pull out my phone, turn on the pump watch the sprinklers start spraying.
I also have indoor/outdoor temp, humidity & battery voltage data being sent from the blind to a a free cloud data base. So I can make sure the battery charge level is doing ok while the pump is running.
What I'm imagining for when its done:
option A:
6 wobbler sprinkler heads
2 additional pipes running along the creek with 1/4" taps to spray unrestricted onto some trees & shrubs planted near the creek
option B:
If I have too much sprinkler plugging troubles or get tired of cleaning the strainer I can get rid of the sprinkler heads and let water dump on the ground. Maybe put some short lengths of 1/2" tubing to have a few dump points from each of the 6 current endpoints of the buried tubing.
Most of the setup ought is generic supplies. Some specifics that may matter are:
wobbler sprinkler. heads
pool pump strainer
1hp sump pump
Here's some photos of the recent work in progress:
And a video of it running:
video link on Rumble. The two tubes that don't have sprinkler heads yet have their valves shut off.
General property info:
71 acres, 31 ag, 40 of native
my property is off grid. I have DIY'd solar on the garage and the deer blind, starlink on the garage, and 1500 feet point to point wifi link between the garage and the deer blind. There's reolink security cameras in the garage and the blind, with about 1000 feet of cat6 networking cable burried around the blind for POE cameras.
But this project...
I've been staring at the creek by the blind for a few years wanting to irrigate the food plot. Over the last couple years I've done occasional small experiments sorting out what might work. The creek goes dry in the summer, but I think I can deal with that, when I get to the point where that's my main irrigation problem.
Early assumptions:
Normal high pressure irrigation would be a pain with dirty water. The orifices are too small and plug to easily. Filtering it that finely I expect would turn into a never ending chore. I think I need to use higher volume, lower pressure irriagion. So I figured using a sump pump makes more sense than a typical higher pressure "irrigation" or "swimming pool" style pump.
Current situation:
I've been torn between simple & reliable, just doing flood irrigation where lengths of tubing carry water then dump it on the ground, vs trying to get by with some larger orifiace sprinklers.
I've been playing with some wobbler style sprinkler heads that so far look promising. Early testing with a single one, connected to the sump pump with 20 yards of 3/4 tubing worked well. With no filtering on the water, it usually worked ok. But it did plug several times (small stick, leaf, minnow, crawfish). It seemed like the problem was always things in or by the pump when it started. One the pump starts, if the sprinkler isn't immediately plugged, it works ok.
So I recently got the trencher back out, and burried more tubing. All tubing is 3/4" (some pex, some irrigation turbing; just using whatever I had). All tubing is straight runs from the manifold to the sprinkler heads.
I got a strainer (open filter) intended for a swimming pool pump. I'm hoping it will catch the big stuff that will plug up the sprinkler nozzles without being so restrictive I have to clean it often.
I started with a 4 pack of those wobbler heads. I have 6 pieces of burried tubing, so 2 don't have heads on them yet. But I was encouraged that the 4 sprinklers ran great even with the other two tubes open (dumping water on the ground without restriction). So I have some headroom on the pump capacity.
I have a wifi connected smart switch to turn on the pump from my phone. So I can be sitting at my desk at home (I work from home), and bring up the cameras live feed, pull out my phone, turn on the pump watch the sprinklers start spraying.
I also have indoor/outdoor temp, humidity & battery voltage data being sent from the blind to a a free cloud data base. So I can make sure the battery charge level is doing ok while the pump is running.
What I'm imagining for when its done:
option A:
6 wobbler sprinkler heads
2 additional pipes running along the creek with 1/4" taps to spray unrestricted onto some trees & shrubs planted near the creek
option B:
If I have too much sprinkler plugging troubles or get tired of cleaning the strainer I can get rid of the sprinkler heads and let water dump on the ground. Maybe put some short lengths of 1/2" tubing to have a few dump points from each of the 6 current endpoints of the buried tubing.
Most of the setup ought is generic supplies. Some specifics that may matter are:
wobbler sprinkler. heads
pool pump strainer
1hp sump pump
Here's some photos of the recent work in progress:
And a video of it running:
video link on Rumble. The two tubes that don't have sprinkler heads yet have their valves shut off.
