Irrigation and Gas Powered Water Pump Questions

[sparc]

Don't think so...here is a pic taken of the river from the top of the ridge where the house is.

What is the elevation difference from the river to the location of the 1100 gal tank?

from the pic it looks to be about 40 or 50 feet, but hard to tell.

 

[LazySusanFarms]

Are you going to use any kind of filtration? Could spend a lot of time unplugging drip emitters.

 

[crbr]

Good thread

 

[hunterridgefarm]

What is the elevation difference from the river to the location of the 1100 gal tank?

from the pic it looks to be about 40 or 50 feet, but hard to tell.

Elevation from the river to the top of the ridge is 200-250 ft.

 

[hunterridgefarm]

Are you going to use any kind of filtration? Could spend a lot of time unplugging drip emitters.

I will have 2 filters on the intake side of the pump. Actually it is a strainer on the end of the hose/pipe that is in the water and a 2 stage filter on the intake side of the pump.

 

[studor]

Instead of worrying about transporting the water by truck or trailer, why not pump into and out of multiple tanks? Many years ago on drill rigs we used to pump into barrels and then pump out of those barrels into others in order to get water to the rigs that were a long distance and at higher elevation than a single pump could handle. You could use say three tanks and as many pumps as you could afford and just transfer from one tank to the other until you reach your final storage location. At my country place I was using forty five gallon drums to move water to my garden which is a fair distance from my pond -- gave up, bought another pump and now pump into one of the barrels and then into the four barrels by the garden -- entire process takes less time than it used to take to do one barrel. My next move is to buy larger water tanks. The multiple tank process also acts a bit like settling ponds -- the water at the end has less crud because it settles in the tanks

 

[Verticaltrx]

One thing you must consider about this type of pump is if it can handle pumping at higher than normal pressures for extended periods of time. Most of these pumps are meant for pumping water unrestricted and will bog down or overheat if to much restriction is placed on the output. With that said, there are certain pumps that are made for this use and have higher pressure output.

I have a small 1" Honda water pump that I use for watering my garden and it works great for powering 3-4 standard sprinklers. It isn't designed for real high back pressure use, but better than most. I have to run it at 3/4 throttle to keep it from lugging, since it can only push so much water through the sprinklers at a time. With more sprinklers it could probably be run full throttle.

As for your F-250 hauling 3800lbs, that all depends on how it is set up (year, GVWR, spring package, etc). There are many configurations on these trucks that can greatly affect the payload. Some F-250's have a light GVWR and payload capacity closer to an F-150, others are closer to an F-350. I have an '88 F-250 with the high GVW package, factory overload springs, etc and 3800lbs would be a pretty good load, but not overloaded. With that said, my father has a '99 F-250, same GVWR but lighter springs and no overloads, it would be riding on the bump stops with that much weight. If you are worried about it a small trailer would be a good option.

 

[Bdavis]

My Brother-in-law developed a pretty nice system using these 250 gal plastic containers ( the ones that have the wire cage around them - don't know what they are called). They had soap in them originally. A guys was selling them for 50.00 bucks a piece so he picked up several.

Anyway he used his pond and a gas powered trash pump to fill the containers
Only took about 3 minutes to fill a container. He had his rows on a slope and would use his tractor and forks to water every couple of days.
He raised some nice corn last year even thouh we had a severe drought
so his system did work

 

[tpulley]

I deliberated over a gas pump vs a submersible pump early in the year. If you have electricity, you may want to consider submersible pumps. You can lay them directly into the water source (there is a caveat to that though, it still needs to run through a piece of pipe).

I am starting a upick operation I have over 5 acres of "crops". I chose drip for a few reasons. 1. Its cheaper in the long run. 2. It is better for the plants. 3. It actually takes less water. 4. You can run a lot more irrigation at once. You can do fertilization and chemicalization from the same setup. Its soooooo easy, even a caveman can do it. :laughing:

If it sounds like something you would be interested in PM me and we can discuss.