Solar Irrigation System (Need help!)

Hi all, I need help planning out an off grid irrigation system. I work at a school and we just got a property donated to us and it is 100% off-grid. We are going to start a large school garden that is about 100’ x 100’ plot.

We have mapped out 30 40’ garden beds. We would like to use drip irrigation. We have a 1,600 gallon water tank. There will be two 3/4” main lines coming out of the water tank that will run perpendicular to the garden beds and then two 1/4” spaghetti drip lines coming off the main line going down each bed with 1 gal/hr emitters every 12”.

How do I figure out how big of a pump I need and what kind of solar setup I need to run it? I’d like to water for at least 15 mins everyday for seedlings.

Thank you so much for your help!
Kyle

Hi Kyle,

Welcome to Permies.

Kyle,

3/4 irrigation hose can carry 480 Gph so in theory you can install 960 1 Gph emitters. So your tank would get emptied in 100 minutes and you would need 16 Gpm pump. If you will use less emitters then you may go with a lower Gpm pump. You can also use smaller pump and add valves to the main 3/4 lines then you would water one line at a time and use even lower capacity pump.

If you really want to teach those kids then don't use a pump use gravity. Lift the tank up above the plant level as much as reasonably possible and let gravity do the job. Just make sure you get emitters that can work with gravity flow. Many if not all can.