Lower flow rate emitters?

[TorontoJoe]

I have a large group of 1/2 and 1 gal trees that I'm trying to water on the same watering zone as some larger trees. They don't require much water. Rather than replace ALL the drip emitters on the larger trees with higher-flow drippers,(so as to water for less time) I'm trying to find a pressure compensating drip emitter with a lower flow rate.

The lowest I can find are these Netafim 0.32 GPH drippers (strange flow rate even in metric at 1.21 liters)

https://www.irrigationdirect.ca/01wpcjl1.2.html

Is anyone aware of a lower flow emitter out there?

[Harish-C]

There are drip emitters with adjustable screw cap opening, the kind you screw in or out depending upon the desired flow rate. Here are two examples of the kind I have used in the past.

https://smile.amazon.com/MANSHU-Adju...7257272&sr=8-8

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07QS8XC...a-dc39d11a4b6a

[TorontoJoe]

Strange, both links come up for me in Spanish. Curious. Can you dial in specific flow rates? For instance .5liter per hour or 1/4 gal per hour?

I've seen other adjustable units but they only indicate that they are adjustable and don't indicate how much is flowing.... I know they're never exact but I'll like to have a general idea for consistency

[SubmarinePete]

I use drip depot and I have large trees on the same line as small. I use adjustable drip emitters. Here is the specific one I use—it works for me:

https://www.dripdepot.com/product/ad...n-6-inch-stake

[SubmarinePete]

TorontoJoe Yeah I guess so. I just use the gut feel method. Seriously though, flow rate will depend on water pressure of course, but I’ve also found that the number of drippers per zone has a big impact in flow rate.

[TorontoJoe]

Totally. I have pressure regulators. My whole system runs at 20psi... but the regulators are wonky... that's why I really like the pressure compensating emitters. iDrop are my favourite but they don't make a pressure compensating emitter lower than 2 liters per hour

[LQfig]

I just set up my figs with these and at a medium setting I got about 1 liter per minute! I doubt you could get anywhere near what a normal 0.5 gph or similar drip emitter puts out with these. I am running them at about 1 liter/ 5 minutes rate and running them for 12 minutes once a day, 5 and 10 gallon pots. I was hand watering 2L every day. It's been really hot, and I have well draining 4-2-1 (pine bark fines, promix HP, calcined clay) mix. So far everyone is happy.

[Vladimir]

TorontoJoe If you know how many gallons you want to deliver, you can set the emitter at a low rate, like 1 drop/min, and collect and measure the resultant volume over a time like 60 min. You can then increase or decrease the flow rate accordingly.
By the way, 1 drop of water has a volume of about 0.013 gal, so if you collect for 60 minutes, you may have collected 0.78 gal. In other words, your flow rate would be 0.78 gal/hr.
However, I do not do that because it would take too much time to do that for each emitter. . I adjust emitters until I see water draining from the pots. This requires a lot of adjusting of all of my 75 or so emitters.

[TorontoJoe]

In a perfect world I'd be able to deliver say 0.5 liters per hour... which is roughly .13 gallon per hour...

I didn't realize I could set as accurately as "drops per minute".

[Vladimir]

@TorotoJoe You can set it to drops /min by counting drops/unit time.
Each drop is 0.013 gal., so you would need 10 drops/hr to get 0.13 gal/hr.

[TorontoJoe]

10 drops per minute?

[Vladimir]

OOPS! My mistake. Yes, it should be 10 drops/min.

[Harish-C]

Joe: That's funny. When I click on those two Amazon links I gave you they open up in English, as expected.

Those adjustable drippers only allow you to increase or decrease the flow rate, without any actual metering of the flow rate in gpm

[TorontoJoe]

Joe: That's funny. When I click on those two Amazon links I gave you they open up in English, as expected.

Those adjustable drippers only allow you to increase or decrease the flow rate, without any actual metering of the flow rate in gpm

I know... strange

[JCT]

Canada....Latin America. It's all the same.

[Frankenberry]

You could switch the tree emmitters to higher flow or add more or both and for the small pots use the adjustable at a low flow or use 0.5 or lower emitters. Then you can get the similar affective volume delivery in a shorter period of time to the trees and low volume to the pots.

The adjustable emmitters tend not to be as volume delivery stable with different water pressures and over time but I do prefer adjustable overall.

[tinyfish]

Use the stackable woodpecker emitter then you can stack upto eight drippers from it. This is the 4 way and 8 way. https://www.irrigationdirect.ca/01AD...rrigation.html

https://www.irrigationdirect.ca/01AD...rrigation.html

I devised a make shift way to water my small pots without punching a bunch of holes in my mainline. I installed my permanent 2gal Idrop emitter in the mainline then a small piece of tubing to the stackable 1 or 2 gal emitter then I stack 2,4,6 or 8 from the woodpecker emitter and when the stackable is not needed I can remove or reduce the stacking as needed and I have my permanent 2gal emitter always there.

[WVMJack]

simple and easy, use these little 4 way manifolds that already have hoses attached and an end with a stake that drips out, you can go 4, 8, 12, they stack and fit on top of 2 gal woodpeckers, we use them for our tall tree pots and gallon pots, 1 hole in your feeder hose for the woodpecker and stack these on top of each other. the WASS is closed at the top, the WST is a flow through so you can put it between the WASS to stack and expand the number of hoses. https://www.dripworks.com/multi-outl...or-woodpeckers
https://www.dripworks.com/woodpecker-emitters

[BigJohnfromCT]

Toronto Joe, be a little careful of Amazon emitters. I bought some really cheap 0.5 gph ones a few years ago for my gravity feed winter watering system and drowned a number of my wife's tropicals. She was not happy. Just another tick in the "you get what you pay for" column.

[TorontoJoe]

I'd like to do some tests measuring drops such as what Vladimir suggested. In principal it sounds like a good idea if it the units are built accurately enough.

I'm not sure I understand the accuracy of the stackable woodpecker if it sits before the pressure compensating emitter.

One thing is for sure.... I'm not really into buying any of the knock-off stuff. iDrop by Irritec and Netafim are both built where solid standards are in place. I've had hundreds of iDrop emitters in use for years... They sit outside all winter during repeated freeze-thaw. In all that time I can count on one hand how many have broken or failed. Netafim I haven't used as long but they've still held up. I've bought some overpriced crud at Home Depot that leaked from new. Cheap equipment is far too expensive for me.

[ginamcd]

I've been having good luck with the Antelco Potstream spray emitters -- adjustable from 0-10 gph. I put two in each large pot, and one in the smaller 1-3 gallon pots. Dialing them down so they don't over spray seems to be just about the right amount per watering regardless of pot size. Cost is less than $1 a piece and I only lost a couple to breakage when the wind blew over some trees.

[TorontoJoe]

Thanks Gina. I've never even heard of these. I'm going to see if they're available up here.