Solar Irrigation Question

[jhambley]

I am trying to use my 2 acre pond in Kansas to irrigate some newly planted trees spread over 20 acres.

I was thinking of a solar powered system like the system described below. Could you please provide feedback on this solution or possibly offer a better solutions. Obviously the cost of the system is an important factor.

Thanks you in advance for your input.

It will be too expensive to build a system to reach the back part of our acreage so what I was thinking was:

1. Use the pump to fill a tank (say 500 gallons) located within 200'  of the pond.
   
2. Fill a 100-200 gallon tank placed into my pickup truck from the larger tank via gravity-fed hose
   
3. I would drive the water to the trees and deliver using a gravity-fed hose.
   
   

So I guess what I'm looking for is a system that could keep the 500 gallon tank reasonably topped off.

My calculations:

• Start with a full tank (500 gallons)
  
• Remove 200 gallons
  
• Pumps start replacing the water at 2 gallons per minute
  
• Takes 1 hour to water 40 trees (200 gallons)
  
• Return to tank which now contains (300 + 60 gallons)
  
• Pumps start replacing the water at 2 gallons per minute
  
• Takes 1 hour to water 40 trees (200 gallons)
  
• Return to tank which now contains (100 + 60 gallons)
  
• Pumps start replacing the water at 2 gallons per minute
  
• Takes 1 hour to water 32 trees (160 gallons)
  
  

I could water over 100 trees in an afternoon with only 2 gpm. I guess I'm looking for some different

solutions that could deliver 2 and more gpm. Obviously price is a consideration. Maybe the most

cost effective thing is to increase the size of the large storage tank?

[farmerfrank]

The cheapest is a gasoline pump but thats not the outback way of doing things. It would only cost a penny to pump 500 gallons with a gas pump and take about 2 minutes. If your like me you'll find a much harder and expensive way of doing it though..lol

[wdyasq]

Having watered several thousand trees on landscaping projects I can relate how we had success.  We would use plastic barrels with a small hole drilled in the bottom and fill with trucks having 2-4,000 gallon tanks.  Depending on how the truck was setup, you would either drive up a dump a load of water on each barrel or stick a large hose in each barrel and fill.  The water would slowly leak from the barrel.

If starting small trees you will have more success as they will quickly establish enough roots to sustane itself.  Larger trees take a bunch more water. Best luck - long term - was to plant very small bare-root trees in winter or very early spring and rely on rains to do the watering. This was in North Central Texas where the winters are not normally real harsh but summers can be brutal.

Ron

[jhambley]

Thanks for your reply. They are all cutting I just planted. I just need to keep them watered until the are established. I'm starting with 20 acres without a single tree as the property was cropland before I purchased it last year. I built the pond last year (which is full now).

Thanks again!

[Experimental]

          If you want to do this with a solar system, it,s going to require a solar panel, controller, one or two batteries and a 12volt pump, like they use in RV,s.

        Shurflo, offers quite a few pumps , one being 1/2" in and outlet, 168 gallon per hour and capable of 40psi --Lifts water from about 12'and will draw 4 amps...$60 to $70 --the solar system, about $300 -- my best guess !!

      You might be able to fudge a little on the solar panel, but I would use a 50 watt -- that gives you about 4 amps recovery rate, with maybe one battery!!

Possiable to just run on the panel, but i wouldn,t count on it !!

      If you haven,t bought that 500 gallon tank, you might consider the 1000, or even 1500 -- I just bought one two years ago at a Co-Op, and it was about$450 and as I recall, the 500 was only about $100 cheeper !!  This is the heavy black nylon type, and has served me well !!

      If that all ,has changed your mind about solar -- I invested in a Honda powered, portable pump, and a 220 gallon tank that fits in the back of my truck..

     I haul water from a spring, about a half mile from my cabin, about 6 or seven trips fills up that 1500 gallon tank, and dosen,t take but a few hours, as that little pump, puts out 1980 gallons an hour !!  It,s only 15 pounds, four cycle and comes with 15' of suction hose and a strainer -- I use a garden hose on the discharge end, and fill that 220 gallon tank in my truck, in about 15 minutes !!

     The cost of the pump was $300, and I see it advertised in the Northern tool catalog, for $359 ---(#109409 - 1505)    This may seem expensive, but will fill that 500, gallon tank in minutes, and the 1500, in about an hour and this is a really good pump!!

     If you go the solar route -- make it difficult to reach that panel as they sometimes dissapear !!  Best of luck to you, it,s all pretty easy -- feel free to email -- Bill H.......

   

[jhambley]

Thanks for your advice. I'd really like to experiment with the solar panel. I saw the following system on otherpower.com.

http://www.otherpower.com/danf_waterpump.html

Thought I could build one simular to this. I think you are right about the larger tank. I have not yet purchased any of this system. I would like to skip the batteries if possible and use the controller they mention in the above mentioned system.

Do you have any suggestions on vendors I might work with to build a system like this?

Thanks again.

[Experimental]

         The best luck I have had with cost, for solar panels, has been Ebay -- if you are not familiar with ebay -- just punch it up on your computer !!

        The system you are looking at is a 75 watt panel, and will certainly run a Shurflo pump -- if you set up your tank, with a simple float valve, it will turn on and off as necessary !!

        There is another company I have delt with called --"Sun Cowboy", and bought a panel from them -- they will have pretty much, everything you need -- probably not the pump -- but that,s available at most RV shops ..

        I really recommend a NEW solar panel, not used !!

      My cabin is powered by both solar, and wind generator, but two years, on only solar --- it worked perfectly !!  

     As I am originally from Nebraska -- I know you have plenty of sun light       ( ebay, will also have the pump !!)  Good luck, and feel free to email, Bill H....

[nanotech]

Not meaning to be a nitpick, but I think your math is slightly off here...




2 gallons per minute = 120 gallons per hour....





    *  Start with a full tank (500 gallons)


    * Remove 200 gallons


    * Pumps start replacing the water at 2 gallons per minute


    * Takes 1 hour to water 40 trees (200 gallons)


    * Return to tank which now contains (300 + 120 gallons)


    * Pumps start replacing the water at 2 gallons per minute


    * Takes 1 hour to water 40 trees (200 gallons)


    * Return to tank which now contains (100 + 120 gallons)


    * Pumps start replacing the water at 2 gallons per minute




Just a thought...

[Psycogeek]

i must think differentally

run tiny hoses to each tree, have pump run at 2gal per minute when the sun is out (needed most), replace 500gal tank with hot tub, relax :-)

[ghurd]

What is the head?

I have had good luck with the Attwood V-Series 12v pumps.

They move a lot of water for a little power, and cheap.

Their problem could be the head, and distance in a small pipe.

A V500 (500gph open flow) was just a good trickle at a 3' head with 250' of 3/4" garden hose.

That cheap black 1.25" flex pipe would have made it much better.

A larger pump like the V750 and that black pipe would move a lot of water for 2.5A.

Probably need an automatic cut off switch at the tank or it will be a power wasting mud hole.

Could try it for under $100, not including the battery and tank.

And going to need the pipe anyway.

If it works well, it would only need 1/2 or 1/3 the solar panel,

because it would move more water faster with less power.

None of that counts if the head is over about 7'.

G-

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

I'm curious as to why it would be so expensive to get to the back of your lot.

Is it 'way uphill?

Since you're only planning to water for a few months until the trees establish themselves, you could use cheap garden hose (or even cheaper drip irrigation tubing) to get the water out there - and even distributed to the individual trees.

Water doesn't really care how far it goes as long as the two ends are at roughly the same height - and while friction in a hose will slow things on really long runs you can still move a LOT of water a long way in a day through a small tube, using little (if any) power.

If you have a hill out there you can put a storage tank maybe 30 feet up to get enough pressure to run sprinklers and the like intermittently at higher flow than the long hose run can support, and make up the difference when the sprinklers are off.

My brother came up with (or borrowed from someone else) a cute hack for his (portable) live-steam railroad water tower.  You want it to fill and stop, then refill when water has been used.  So he put a cheap toilet tank float valve assembly inside the tank and a garden hose fitting on the bottom to feed it.  (Hook up to any faucet at the get-together and it just works.)  A similar setup could be used on a "helper" pressure tank on a hill near the trees to keep it filled but not overflowing, so you wouldn't need to wire a control signal back to the pump.  Just let the pump shutoff switch for the MAIN water storage or pressure tank do the job normally.

If you need to pump from a near-surface source or storage tank to an uphill location you can use a pressure pump of the sort sold for traver trailers with self-contained water systems.  12V diaphram pump/check valve/pressure switch assembly, optional pressure tank to smooth things out if the pump tends to cycle rapidly during normal use.  Each about the size of a family-size soup can.

[Bryan1]

Just a thought,

               If you have the facility to employ a water ram then use that to move yor water. Then you could fill various tanks slightly elevated around the 20 acres and setup a drip feed. Just workout the required amount for each tree and how many trees then it will only takes an hour a day or so, even less if you set it up right.

Cheers Bryan

[jhambley]

I'm guessing the lift from the pond surface to the shore would be around 5'. I don't understand how I would mount the bilge pump in the pond and run the wiring out to it?

These pumps have impressive gph numbers at relatively low power consumption. I wonder how they would hold up pumping dirty pond water? I've heard it is best to pull the water from 3' down in a pond but again I'm cluless as to how I would month the pump.

Thanks for your reply.

 

[jhambley]

I wish I did have the conditions to run a ram pump. Just flat Kansas farmland.

[ghurd]

They are high volume, low pressure.

They take dirty water fine.

(even bait minnows, like a meat grinder- yuck)

Head should be figured pond surface to tank water surface.

Mounting is easy. Tie it to a concrete block!

Wires. I solder and heat shrink the connections with adhesive type heat shrink.

(scraping the silver powder stuff off the wire makes soldering much easier)

Leaves, etc. can clog the intake, so maybe thats why they say a little under the surface.

Also. A large pipe hold a lot of water. It will gravity feed back to the pond when the pump is off. A solution may be a 5 1/2' riser at the pond end, where the pump puts water in the riser at a slightly higher head than the tank.

Check valves will really reduce the output. (low pressure)

Low V will really reduce the output and max head too.

Probably want the battery near the pump,

and the switch at the tank to feed a signal to a power control (like a relay) at the pump end.

Not the V625, not enough head.

The V1250 has a tad more max head than the others.

I don't think the pump will last for years, but it should be fine for a season.

Thats fine for $18, IMHO.

G-