The Best Sprinkler Solutions For Nurseries And Containers

October 20, 2022·32 min·2 clips

Overhead irrigation must account for plant height, roads, foot traffic, plastic coverings, and everything in the water’s path.

1. The Jane Irrigation Training Series episode examines sprinkler solutions for nurseries and container plants. 2. Richard Restuccia hosts Michael Pippen, an agricultural and irrigation professional who led an Irrigation Association Education Committee. 3. The episode asks how growers should match overhead irrigation products to plant height, coverage, infrastructure, labor, and plant health. 4. Richard introduces overhead sprinklers as a follow-up to an earlier discussion of single-point emission devices for indoor growing and nurseries. 5. Michael says sprinkler systems can handle some water-quality issues that affect other irrigation methods. 6. Michael explains that overhead systems may require more infrastructure because sprinklers must be mounted above plants. 7. Plant height matters more for overhead irrigation than drip irrigation because the sprinkler must clear the crop. 8. Coverage planning must account for long narrow areas, square fields, roads, foot traffic, dust suppression, and seasonal plastic. 9. Michael identifies water throw, wetted pattern, droplet size, and vibration as major sprinkler-selection characteristics. 10. Individual containers reveal nonuniform watering quickly because roots cannot migrate into adjacent soil with different moisture. 11. Impact sprinklers offer many nozzle sizes, trajectories, large droplets, and throw distances that can reach 50–60 feet. 12. Michael says impact sprinkler uniformity commonly falls around 70–80%, with higher uniformity requiring closer spacing and more sprinklers. 13. A cited example compares roughly 82% uniformity at 40-foot spacing with higher uniformity requiring about 15% more sprinklers. 14. Micro sprinklers suit small areas, germination, propagation, and cooling but their small droplets are vulnerable to wind. 15. Micro sprinklers may provide about 90% uniformity or more when many units overlap across a small area. 16. Single-stream products such as Super 10 and Mini Revolver bridge the gap between impact sprinklers and low-volume micro sprinklers. 17. Super 10 flow rates are described as approximately 1.5–3 gallons per minute at about 30–40 PSI. 18. The Mini Revolver is described as using about 0.5–1.5 gallons per minute and operating around 20–25 PSI over roughly 30 feet. 19. Richard and Michael present the material as a practical question-and-answer training session with product comparisons and audience questions. 20. Nursery growers comparing overhead irrigation options would value this episode. 21. Listeners seeking general gardening tips might skip it.

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Irrigation Training Series