Extension Master Gardener

We have all heard of drip irrigation, right? This is a water-saving irrigation technique that delivers a measured amount of water directly to a plant’s root zone, therefore reducing waste. There is no water lost due to wind, evaporation is reduced, and weeds are controlled by not watering “extra” areas.

What about using subsurface drip irrigation to irrigate our lawns? This technique makes a lot of sense for irregularly-shaped and/or small grass areas. Sprinklers work best for areas that are squares or rectangles. But many times we want a curved “kidney-bean” shaped lawn. Sprinklers will over spray in these areas, and we end up watering the sidewalk! What’s the solution? Subsurface drip!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Installation is not difficult. A little pre-planning is necessary. The water pressure must be measured and used to calculate how many irrigation zones are needed. Some additional valves may need to be installed. If this all sounds like Greek (it did to me), just contact me (Cheryl Kent, kent@nmsu.edu) so I can e-mail you some educational materials with all the details.

Once the set-up is done, it takes a few friends to help dig, pop together the pieces, and lay the dripline.

I have included a few pictures of a recent subsurface irrigation workshop held by New Mexico State University Cooperative Extension. NMSU Turfgrass Specialist Dr. Bernd Leinauer and Valencia County Agriculture Agent Kyle Tator hosted this workshop.

Please don’t hesitate to contact Cheryl Kent (Bernalillo County Horticulture Agent) at kent@nmsu.edu with questions about the process or materials used.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 7th, 2012 at 5:41 pm and is filed under Educational Resources, Events, Plants, Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.