- Author: Ben Faber
The Irrigation Training & Research Center (ITRC) of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo tested 28 different pressure-compensating models of microirrigation emitting devices from a total of nine manufacturers in order to compare independent laboratory testing with manufacturer specifications.
The test results indicate that:
The majority of ~0.5 gallon-per-hour emitters (drippers), regardless of manufacturer exhibited:
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Good uniformity of manufacturer
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Had excellent response to pressure variation
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Had consistent flow rates within the nominal operating pressure range
But that the percentage of well-performing products decreased as the designed flow rate increased. Many of the emitters designated as microsprinklers or sprayers, although pressure compensating did not compensate at the normal operating pressures. Often the pressure compensating feature did not start performing until much higher pressures were achieved. Often this occurred when clogging occurred and this clogging often occurred where the pressure diaphragm was located and was not performing. Sediment would get in back of the diaphragm. Effectively the emitters were not pressure compensating. The testing procedure of numerous medium and high flow models also found individual pieces were found to be defective. These faulty emitters had a measurable effect on the evaluation for those models.
Read more at: http://www.itrc.org/reports/pdf/emitters.pdf
An example of the comparisons that ITRC canbee seen here of their results, compared to the manufacturers' values:
- Author: Larry Schwankl, Freddie Lamm, Dana Porter
Maintenance of Microirrigation Systems
Microirrigation systems include microsprinklers for tree crops, drip emitters for trees, vines, and some row crops, and drip tape for row and field crops. Microirrigation systems apply water to the soil through emitters that are installed along drip lines and contain very small flow passages. Microirrigation systems can apply water and fertilizers more uniformly than other irrigation methods. This uniformity results in potentially higher yields, higher revenue, and reduced irrigation operating costs.
Uniformity, a performance characteristic of irrigation systems, is a measure of the evenness of the applied water throughout the irrigation system. Distribution uniformity (DU), sometimes called emission uniformity (EU), is an index that describes how evenly or uniformly water is applied throughout the field. A uniformity of 100% means the same amount of water was applied everywhere. Unfortunately, all irrigation systems apply water at a uniformity of less than 100%, and thus some parts of a field receive more water than others. Field evaluations have shown that microirrigation systems have the potential for higher uniformity than other irrigation methods. However, clogging reduces the uniformity of applied water in microirrigation systems, thus increasing the relative differences in applied water throughout a field.
The small flow passages in the emitters and microsprinklers make microirrigation systems highly susceptible to clogging. Clogging reduces the uniformity of the applied water and decreases the amount of applied water. Clogging also decreases the amount of salt leaching around the lateral line in saline soils.
The objective of this web site is to provide information to irrigators about the causes of clogging and the methods for preventing or correcting clogging problems in microirrigation systems. Among the topics covered are the sources of clogging, chlorination, preventing chemical precipitation, filtration, flushing, and monitoring microirrigation systems.
This web site is divided into sections to allow the users to more quickly access the information they want. For example, if you already know you have a clogging problem and you want to solve it, go to the section Solutions to Existing Clogging Problems - "I have a problem and I want to solve it".