water channel across forest garden

Hi, im starting a forest garden so i planted 4 weeks ago my first 6 trees.

I choosed the following pionner trees:

- molle, casuarina, pacay, alamo, sauce, and huarango.


I planted them in this way:






As you see my land has 2 water channel in 2 sides of the land.
Since i planted the little trees i been going to the forest one time each 5 days for irrigating the plants with a water bucket picking water from the water channels.
After one week the pacay plant died. I found this little pacay plant growing very near from a water channel , the plant was growing by itself ( nobody planted it) . I transplated this pacay little tree from the water channel to my land.
I dont know why but it died. Maybe one time each 5 days is too little water for pacay. Pacay tree is suppossed to grow in poor environments and fix nitrogen and needs water, thats why i planted it near to the water channel. But it didnt survived.

Huarango tree, casuarina and molle are growing fine, the plants look very green and healthy, i think these plants doesnt need water, maybe thats why.

Alamo and Sauce (salix) look like they are dry or death, they look dead but a local farmer says they are alive... the last week i been irrigating each 3 days but i dont see any change in these plants, they look dead and dry.


I been talking about this with local farmer and he told me that i can make a new water channel that connects the 2 water channels that are in both sides of my land, in that way i dont need to come with my water bucket to irrigate and the water channel would irrigate automatically the trees growing near to it.

I was wondering , are there any strategies for creating water channels for food forests? Do anybody have tried something like this?
are there any specific design that works better?

Do you think is a good idea if i do something like the following image? Do you think its a good idea having the channel with running water all the time?

Maybe instead of creating just a line from one channel to the other i can create a channel acrross the land with more irregular and complex shapes?

any suggestion and feedback would be appreciated.

How does the land contour? I think watching the rain move along the property would help with this. The water, I think, as with some other things, will move along the path of least resistance across your land and might reveal the optimal setup to you. I do not know what would be a good idea for your situation; I advise observing how everything operates and using that as a starting place for creating a plan of action.