PTO Water Pump?

rpeter · Apr 13, 2006

We have just had the driest March on record and I have 2500 hardwood trees (seedlings) that would like a drink of water. I have a six acre lake and will be filling 55 gallon drums on my trailer and will haul them (kubota B7800) down the rows of trees pumping about a gallon of water on each tree as I drive by.

My question is what should I use for a pump? PTO driven, gas, 12V, what? I do not need high volume or high pressure. Any ideas?

GabeTX · Apr 13, 2006

I hate to state the obvious, and I'm sure you've thought of this...

But given that you don't need high volume or pressure... How about gravity?

Couldn't you just use a siphon? Or put a tap in the bottom of the drums?

Soundguy · Apr 14, 2006

I think he probably wants a pump to help him fill those 55g drums, then double duty it to exhaust the water...

Soundguy

avorancher · Apr 14, 2006

( pumping about a gallon of water on each tree as I drive by )

Will a gallon per tree be enough? My avocado trees straight from the nursery (3 gallon containers) require about 30 to 40 gallons of water per week. For my situation, a couple gallons would slightly prolong their eventual death.

I guess if you have 2500 trees (I have a similar number) you have already figured out how much time it takes to do anything that requires visiting each tree... if you spend 1 minute watering each tree it will take over 40 hours and will be time to start again.

GabeTX · Apr 14, 2006

( I think he probably wants a pump to help him fill those 55g drums, then double duty it to exhaust the water...)
DOH! Of course... I'm too used to being able to fill things with a hose.

gsganzer · Apr 14, 2006

The PTO pump would probably give you more versatility. I have one that I use for watering trees and then use it for running a sprayer.

Westonium · Apr 14, 2006

I suspect you really need to consider alternative methods. here. The time it is going to take you to fill, haul, and water every day is going to be pretty high.

I have a PTO pump that recently cost me $119 plus the PTO adapter of $32, and it can pump 9 gal per minute @ 540. The pump is rated to 2000 rpm and will pump some ridiculous amount like 30 gallons per minute. I would suggest the PTO pump route because you'll get those drums filled much faster.

12V pump pumping a typical 3GPM would take 73 minutes to fill 4 55 gallon drums.

My pump running at 540 rpm would take 24 minutes. If I add a 2:1 pulley, then roughly 12 minutes. I don't know that I would try to fill any faster than that because it seems like things would start breaking trying to pump a crazy 30 GPM into drums.

Suggestions: If you live where it is wet, use sprinklers. Invest in enough hose to get you next to the lake, drive your tractor to the lake, hook up the hoses (1 to lake, 1 to sprinklers), crank up the PTO to a reasonable rate, eat a sandwich, read a magazine, or I guess you could go pull some weeds or something productive.

If you live where it is dry, then invest in drip irrigation, get as many 55 gallon drums as you can haul on a sturdy trailer (a whole lot of weight there) and drop the trailer off and quick-connect the interconnected drums to the irrigation and go do something else letting gravity do the pressure work (might want to regulate it too). A system like this should last a long time. OR you can go back to the "get a really long hose" idea and leave the drums up connected to the drip or soaker system, and every day just go down, hook up to the hoses, pump the drums full, then go do something else.

No offense, but drive-by watering that many trees is crazy.

KiotiJohn · Apr 14, 2006

I would think that if it's possible, you could dig light trenches along side the trees and pump water to them right out of the lake. A good PTO pump would pump enough water to get it way down the trences and provide for the trees.

Of course, you don't want to be so close that you damage the root systems, but I've seen this done on tree farms and it seems to work pretty well.

John

rpeter · Apr 14, 2006

Well, I have been called crazy before, and I might be, however, I have a $10,000 investment in those trees and I would hate to see it go down the tubes because I was to lazy to do a little work. The trees are spread over about 12 acres of land. I am hoping that the dry weather does not last to long. Trenches might work, but digging trenches every 12 feet on 12 acres of land is a lot of work if I only need it for a couple of months. I was really interested to see if anyone had used PTO pumps. It looks like you are saying they do work.

With gravity feed my wife and I can do about 5 trees a minute. But one of the big time wasters is transferring from one drum to the next and restarting the siphon. I was hoping that by using a pump I could cut down on the transfer time, pump the water a little faster and maybe get up to 10 trees a minute. At least then I can get the job done in one long day.

Thanks for all the input guys!
/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Pooh_Bear · Apr 14, 2006

Here's an idea.

Get a 55 gallon barrel. Add a water faucet to it to attach a water hose.
Run water hose from that barrel to about 4 trees.
Every day fill up the barrel and let it drain to the trees.

Repeat for all the other trees.
Seems it would be faster to fill up barrels than it would to water trees.

I used to know a guy that had a tanker truck for water.
He would drive it down to the creek behind our house,
drop the intake line into the water, and open a valve behind the cab.
The valve was hooked to the top of the tank, and to the intake manifold.
Used engine vacuum to fill the tank.
Had to time it just right to keep from flooding the engine.
Took about 30 minutes to fill a 1500 gallon tank.
But it worked well for many years.
(I think he had a way to tell when it was near full).

Pooh Bear

Westonium · Apr 15, 2006

You say it has been dry, but it hasn't been HOT and dry...yet. Aren't you going to be in more trouble come August?

I liked the "put a barrel for every small group of trees" idea.

I mean, you might have to invest more into these trees, but better safe than sorry. With all the wet weather we get in the winter in Oregon, I totally underestimated how much irrigation I was going to need mid-summer. I am vowing not to make that mistake again this year. I'd just hate for you to get overwhelmed with a hot dry spell and end up with a dead investment. I am no tree expert, nor a Pennsylvania weather expert, but those are my thoughts.

VinnieNC · Apr 15, 2006

I had a similar situation a few years ago and this is what I did:

I only have about 300 trees as a boarder around my property, so I am on a smaller scale than you. I used an old 500 gal oil drum that had been cleaned out and used for water many times. With the tank on the back of my pickup, and a valve on the lower end of the tank, I connected a hose. I made a 2 inch "bracket" to fit into my receiver hitch on the truck. I used a piece of 1 inch PVC, connected (I think I duct taped it) to the bracket, parallel to the bumper and allowed one end to stick out the side of the truck about 2 feet on the drivers side so I could see it in my side mirror. Other end of PVC is connected to hose from tank.

So I used a gravity feed system after filling up the tank and opening the valve to drive down my row of trees and let the water run out. Yes, the water ran until the tank was empty, meaning "between" trees too. In my case this is only 8 feet. I had the luxuary of a well to refill the tank.

Good luck.

-Vinnie

TCowner · Apr 15, 2006

I faced the same problem several years ago. I planted 2500 conifer seedlings and about the second or third year we had essentially no rain from about mid april through August 1.
Conifers are pretty strong and can get by with little moisture but they do need some moisture when the flush buds in late april and when they set new buds in late May or June.

I also had a lot of time and effort invested and didn't want to lose them so I did something similar to what you want to do.

I found and old manure spreader at a salvage yard that still had good tires and a good frame. I removed the sides and all of the hardware like the beater, apron, etc. I used an old 300 gallon gasoline tanks that hadn't been used in about 15 years.

I purchased a pto pump kit from Northern Tool and Equipment which included input and output hoses. The pump has an output of 14 gpm at 540 rpm on the tractor. I don't run the engine at full rpm so the output is a little less but still pretty impressive. I run a heavy duty 3/4" rubber hose from the output side up to my tractor and bungee it to the ROPS so I could drive along and water the trees.

I already owned a 2" water transfer pump which has an output of 80 gpm so I could fill my 300 tank in less than 4 minutes.

I was able to drive along the side of the young trees and give them a drink during the critical growing period. I also had used a herbacide to control the grasses which helped maximize the water use. I took me week or so to get them all taken care of but I think it helped. I lost very few trees that year where some of the other growers in the area suffered some pretty substantial losses. I still use the water system today when I transplant trees to areas that I can't use the hose from the outside hydrant.

I also like the fact that I have a 300 gallon fire fighting tool available to me until the fire department arrives. Duing dry periods I keep the tank full in the event it is needed. I had a grass fire a few years ago due to my carelessness and wish I had this equipment. What could have been stopped in 5 minutes ended up burning up a dozen nice trees and scared the heck out of the neighbor. The fire department was a little miffed as well.

gabby · Apr 15, 2006

Look for a 275 gallon industrial tote tank. They're widely used for shipping industrial liquids. Sometimes you can get them for free. The tank is square and made of poly material. It's on a metal pallet and it has a metal bar protective cage. It has a built in 1-1/2" dump valve.

I mounted two of these tanks on a wooden skid platform and plumbed them to a hydraulically driven pump to make a spray wagon.

You could mount a brass lever valve on the outlet line and spring load it so you can pull a rope from the tractor seat to open it at each tree. The valve on the tank will probably be too stiff for this.

You will need to build a dirt dam around each tree to hold several gallons of water because otherwise the water will just run away before it can soak in.
gabby

RalphVa · Apr 15, 2006

Would you be able to run either soaker hoses or old hoses linked together around/among the trees? What I did to my tree/vineyard lines down my hill was to run old hoses to each tree/vine. Then drilled an 1/8" hole at each plant. I gravity feed from tanks up here, from well water connected to the line or from a 12v pump out of my little stream.

For my veggie garden, I have soaker hoses down every row with turn-off valves on each row. Generally only need water when seeding and it's dry. These are supplied by the same poly line that runs down past my trees/vineyard.

Ralph

Soundguy · Apr 16, 2006

( and restarting the siphon. )

Why siphon.. just use gravity feed via a bottom tap.

Soundguy

EddieWalker · Apr 16, 2006

( I have a PTO pump that recently cost me $119 plus the PTO adapter of $32, and it can pump 9 gal per minute @ 540. The pump is rated to 2000 rpm and will pump some ridiculous amount like 30 gallons per minute.
)

Did you buy that pump new? Would you share who you bought it from and if it's a decent pump that you would recomend??

Thanks,
Eddie

gsganzer · Apr 17, 2006

Eddie,
I bought the same thing at TSC. It's called a roller pump. I think mine is either a 4006 or 4008. I use mine for running a small boom sprayer and also for running sprinklers when watering some bermuda and plantings around my tank. It's been real handy. I put some cam-lock connectors on my sprayer hoses and also on my watering hoses that makes hook up simple. You need to make sure you use a non-collapsible suction hose.

Westonium · Apr 18, 2006

( ( I have a PTO pump that recently cost me $119 plus the PTO adapter of $32, and it can pump 9 gal per minute @ 540. The pump is rated to 2000 rpm and will pump some ridiculous amount like 30 gallons per minute.
)

Did you buy that pump new? Would you share who you bought it from and if it's a decent pump that you would recomend??

Thanks,
Eddie

)

I haven't used it much (yet), but it seems well made and came with a ton of information. It is a Hypro 6500C. They make a wide range of pumps, but this one seemed like it would do everything I need and way more.

I just Googled for it, and they are selling it here:
http://www.rittenhouse.ca/asp/Product.asp?PG=101
for $105. You still need the adapter ($30 range), connectors, and some way to arrest the torque (chains).

It may seem like I overstated the 30GPM, but from what I read in the documentation that came with the pump it will evidently run fine @2000 rpm (1000 rpm on a 1:2 pulley, or 540 on a 1:4 running slower). Not that I really need to move 30+ GPM. The 9GPM directly connected is going to be just fine for me.

Max flow 22 gpm at 1000 rpm; 9.7 gpm @ 540 rpm.
Max pressure 300 psi.
Ports 3/4" female NPT inlet and outlet.
Shaft 5/8" DIA. (solid).
Not recommended for use with wettable powders.
Shaft rotates counterclockwise.
Shipping weight 10 lbs.

Everything I've read says that you MUST FILL THE PUMP WITH OIL WHEN NOT IN USE. I extrapolated that I could use veggie oil if I wanted, and that is the way I've gone.