Small irrigation system

Rit

5 year old buck +
I admit I know very little about the principles of irrigation, water transport, and honestly if this will even work at all. I am at the infancy stage of just kicking rocks to see if this is an option. We have had rain exactly twice since June. It has been a rough summer and no relief in site. Even the Derecho that blew into the Midwest abruptly disappeared as it crossed into NW Ohio and dropped no rain. I have not yet determined parts, pumps, GPM, PSI requirements or anything else relevant to making this a valid plan.

I don’t want to spend a fortune to irrigate a field but my entire property is set up and predicated on deer feeding in a specific location every evening and the bedding is sorted in relation to the food. All stand locations are based on the movement from bedding to food for evenings and behind bedding in the mornings. I planted fall plots back in early August and it is ugly. I’ll have grains at some point but I wanted more attraction.

The basics that I have uncovered are as follows. I have two wells on the property. One well is used to source the house and the other is underneath a windmill and back in the day was probably installed for use as a water source for the barn. In the process of trying to irrigate the field I’d like to get water into the barn at the same time. I’d like to use the abandoned well as my water source. I am not sure of the depth of the second well as it’s not on the original plans that I received when I purchased the property. Those plans since lost seemed to have the first well at 275’. I know when they put in my geothermal I watched them drill and we had water at 20’. The second well is cased but has no pump. The windmill was used as the pump. I have power at the windmill and could get 220 there. One issue is the 2nd well sits in the middle of my home site so the first few hundred feet of transport will need to be temporary like fire house or some other easy to move and set up hose. The rest of the run can be whatever 3” PVC would be fine but buried line is not an option. The well is roughly 800’ from the field edge. I am only interested in irrigating 1 acre of the 9 acre field. The first 300’ of the run is almost flat but then it drops down about 2’ over 100 yards then relatively flat again. Ideally at the supply line in the field I would break this out into 2 or 3 branches and install a semi permanent irrigation system that I would remove for spring and fall plantings. This is where I am thinking 1” irrigation black plastic lines into some form of sprinklers. I figure I may need a few pumps trash pumps maybe and probably some sort of holding tank closer to the field not knowing what my well could support as far as irrigation. I could get power within say 100 yards of the field edge. Any thoughts or input? Or maybe it’s just a bad ideal all together.
 
I live in Georgia and got tired of the large amount of time and money I was investing in plots, just to watch them brnr. Blessed with rain this year. Took me several years of info gathering, a ton of money, coordinating friends to help, buying and transporting pipe, etc. This last weekend I was 2 fittings away from finishing my project. I have a main supply running from my beaver swam to 2 separate central areas. That was last year. and I ran a combo of 2 inch pipes with hoses to run guns on tripods. I just moved the tripod as need. Not fun and heavy work. This year we connected to the main outflow pipe and ran buried lines into the plots. Now my plots have stand pipes with irrigation guns on them. One of my guns covers 150 foot diameter. 4 guns can cover an acre I have gas driven pumps at the water's edge.

Now you would not want or need the pump I have at the bigger area. Final guns are 1600 feet away with a 50 ft vertical rise through 4 inch pipe, that necks down to 3 then 2 inch to the guns. The pump runs those guns at full capacity, 2 at a time, and only generates a pressure load less than half of its capacity. It's bad ass. My second area only has about a 15-20 foot vertical with the longest run at 500ft. I had planned to use the bad ass 4 inch pump at both sites, but it is a BEAR to move and set up, so this year I got a 3 inch high pressure pump from Northern tool. It runs 2 guns on my second site just fine. The problem is that it pumps uphill to the central distribution point through 4 inch line, so I'm guessing it is working harder because it's pushing extra water weight. I may dig up and replace or just add a 3 inch line for the uphill later.

On a flat area I use a Harbor freight 2 inch pump to go to a gun 250 ft away and it runs one gun at a time.

You have basically no vertical and may actually pick up from a downhill section, so you may not need a ton pf pressure. You need to figure out what type of sprinkler set up you want to determine your pressure needs. Also, what will be you water source and how far below vertical will you be drawing from. If you could draw from only a 6 ft deep source, you would not need a big pump. Pumps use their hp for pressure or volume. My big pump can deliver 176 psi but only 220 gpm with no load. I get about 160 gpm at the outflow of the main.I have no doubt that Northern tool pump would be all you would need, if that much. If you hare having to draw from 20 feet, get a cheaper pump to bring some water up to a holding tank and then pump to the fields drawing from that tank. PM me if you need details. I'm no pump guy, but I learned a lot in the process. Pump manufactures can give you cirves. Also some have forms for you fill out showing your setup, and they will tell you exactly what to expect at the outflow end.
 
Wow you have quite the set up. As you read I have nothing that intricate and my set up will end up being pretty basic. I actually could bury my lines in the food plot but not the run out to the field. The run out to the field is thru the woods and is quite rocky also.

I think pumping from my well to a holding tank is the way to go. I could actually locate the tank half way to the field and use a pump to keep water flowing into the tank from the well while a 2nd pump pushes water down the main out to the field. The first pump could be electric and the 2nd can be gas powered. As long as the flow rates are similar I should be able to keep water in the tank. I could also use temporary lines from the first pump to the tank. It won’t be fun running those lines every time but I will only be using this when in dire need of water.

I have just started to look at the sprinkler heads. If I could cover an acre with 3 or 4 that would work out well. Just curious what you used for supply lines in your field. You said you choked it down to 2” is that all PVC? Thanks for taking the time to offer some advice.
 
I used Class 200 pipe for piping. The 2 pump setup was my second choice, having a supply pump (SP) to the field's central area and a distribution pump (DP) to the heads. The problem with that is matching inflow with outflow, but worse, if the SP failed or ran out of gas while I was elsewhere on the property, then the DP would run dry and cause pump damage. So I splurged for the single pump setup. I can't tell you, in spite of all of the work I did to make sure that big pump would work, how nervous I was the first time I cranked it. It was like years worth of planning, working, and breath holding was let out when I saw that water pouring out of the end of the 4 inch pipe into the fields!. My biggest thing to overcome was the initial 80 ft run with 50 ft vertical.

You can get a ton of different heads, from RainBirds that put out 15 gpm to the bigger guns that can put out a ton. Fewer riser pipes means less work on installation and fewer things for me to run over with the tractor. I use te PVC as my riser pies, but I have to stabilize them with 2 inch galvanized pipe and T post I have pushed into the ground with my skid steer bucket. I secure the PVC to the posts by wrapping bungee cords for now. Was gonna sink a 4x4 in concrete but this was faster for now. The tripods I used were about 300.00 each. You can run pvc on top of the ground, and secure your pvc risers like I did if you want. Saves a bunch of money there. Those stands are heavy and a pain to move!

Your biggest source of head will be static pressure from pipe friction. Massive difference in friction loss between 2 inch vs 3 inch. At flow rates of 100 GPM you lose 0.3, 0.9, or 6.5 psi per 100 feet using 4, 3,or2 inch. As flow rate increases, pressure loss increases almost exponentially, not linear. I would, at a minimum, run 3 inch as far as you can, and maybe 4, because as pressure increases, flow decreases. Your net drop in vertical might even help you a little! I then run 2 inch to the guns, which are 2 inch guns. I think the high pressure 3 inch from Northstar would do well for you as a single supply pump, even if it only ran one gun at a time. I put ball valves on all of my riser pipes so I can adjust the flow at each pipe if needed. Just need to make sure that your supply to the 3 inch doesn't run dry. If you are pumping into a holding tank to draw from, I'd put it on a platform slightly ABOVE the 3 inch pump. That way you eliminate suction head which would release the pump to dedicate all of it's energy as a forward supply.

You will find that your choices of high pressure pumps is very limited. That 3 inch was a perfect compromise for me. However, you're gonna need some pressure, and most trash pumps don't give you that.

https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200418132_200418132

https://www.irrigationking.com/rain...2-full-circle-impact-sprinkler-w-nozzles.html
 
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Oops. My initial run was 800 ft with 50 ft rise!
 
Have you considered just putting a sand point well in on field edge? I've done a few of them. First one was a horrible experience. The most recent one from start to pumping took me 2 hours in rocky soil. Provided water is no more than 25 feet from height of pump. I can provide some tips to lighten the learning curve if you do go that route
 
Since you don't have vertical rise, the Harbour Freight pumps may work fine. You may need 2, however, because of your distance. The 2 inch ran a single gun for me great with a 200 foot horizontal run and maybe a 2-3 foot rise.
 
Have you considered just putting a sand point well in on field edge? I've done a few of them. First one was a horrible experience. The most recent one from start to pumping took me 2 hours in rocky soil. Provided water is no more than 25 feet from height of pump. I can provide some tips to lighten the learning curve if you do go that route
I read a little about them but admittedly don’t fully understand them. I saw a few videos but not sure how that translates into getting the required pressure. Once I read that clay soils (I have heavy clay) may have a hard time keeping up with the volume you need I kind of moved on. I don’t know that I would be using this a ton so it may still be a viable option thanks for the advice.
 
Since you don't have vertical rise, the Harbour Freight pumps may work fine. You may need 2, however, because of your distance. The 2 inch ran a single gun for me great with a 200 foot horizontal run and maybe a 2-3 foot rise.
I was kind of thinking the same thing. That first pump you posted is that the super big time pump you have? I am still kind of going over this in my head especially as I continue to do a rain dance that hasn’t worked for 30 days. We had a 100% chance of rain the other day and didn’t get a drop. I may have no plots this year. I have seeded twice and have almost nothing to show for it.
 
I think your best (cheapest) long term approach is to get water closer to the area bud, then use a pump similar to what Weedy said. Water is like electricity, the further you have to go (especially when elevation changes) the bigger the pump needed to keep pressure at the other end. There is a calculation to it that can be found on the internet but can be confusing af unless you have a simple calculator to do it for you.
If you decide to go with water from the wells, wells are dug at different depths for different reasons but typically to get away from surface water contaminates like Sulfur water. I dug a well at my house and hit water, but it was Sulfur water, at 18' deep, I wanted clean water so he dug to 195' and I have the only non-Sulfer water in my neighborhood. Your wells are likely the same way but if they are really old, it was more likely so they didn't run out of water during a dry summer (I am guessing).
As a general rule in our buildings, when we spec out a pump in a building on campus, we calculate it for 7 PSI for every 10' of rise. The actual number is 4.33 PSI/10 feet of rise if memory serves, but we have undersized pumps in the past going so close to 4.33 and end up with 0 PSI on the 10th floor and no heating. So if we need to go 100' of rise we need a pump that can pump at minimal 70 PSI, there is also GPM incorporated but not necessary for this purpose because you don't know what size piping you will use yet. There is also distance factor but until you make a solid plan it won't help you to calculate everything when things change.
The easiest way is to first make a plan, then let the pump salesmen online tell you how many HP and GPM pump you will need, then shop for the pump itself. I say that because in all you need to calculate total system volume, total distance, total rise (or fall) and PSI you want at the sprinkler head in the end and if you change just 1 pipe diameter or different sprinkler head and you have to recalculate everything again.
Sorry that was so long, I tried to shorten it but unsure how you would want to approach this bud.
 
I was kind of thinking the same thing. That first pump you posted is that the super big time pump you have? I am still kind of going over this in my head especially as I continue to do a rain dance that hasn’t worked for 30 days. We had a 100% chance of rain the other day and didn’t get a drop. I may have no plots this year. I have seeded twice and have almost nothing to show for it.
The 3 inch Northstar is my "small" pump. My big boy is a 4 inch multiquip with 220 gpm flow with max available psi of 176. 4 grand, not including the suction hose and the special order discharge hose I had made to connect pump to pipe. But it works! I swear it could go through a half mile of pipe.
 
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