Watering remote areas

[Bob_Trevithick]

Rather than putting in all kinds of hoses and faucets for our gardens, it occured to me that maybe I could find a way to carry a large water tank around behind the tractor and do the watering of remote areas that way.

I could put a big plastic tank in my rear dirt scoop or trailer, or I could even imagine getting a friend to weld some 3ph hardware to a 55-gallon drum.

The problem would be pressure for spraying. I could use the "just let it trickle out the bottom" approach if I didn't mind running over our crops. /w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif

Anybody come up with a workable and fairly inexpensive way to do something like this?

Thanks,
Bob

 

[Knight9]

Bob,

How "remote" are these areas?? How frequently would you want to water them? How much water would be required each time?

Kevin

 

[RobS]

Bob, I was faced with watering a couple hundred trees last summer on our property with no water supply. I looked into truck mounted water tanks and tph options all of which were pretty expensive. I ended up buying two 55 drums for $4 each and rigged some simple fittings/valves and hoses to connect it all together. The drums have a bung hole near the bottom so it's all gravity feed. I upped my hose size for better flow after the first trial and it worked just fine.

When we move, I'll likely use the same method, but with only one drum mounted on the tractor with one of those carry-all platforms on the tph. I'll have water close enough that the refills won't be so bad.

Hope this helps /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[Scott_in_WVA]

Water is heavy and you would be suprised how much you could end up using and hauling.

 

[WVBill]

Bob:
I use a soaker hose to water my garden rows now. I suppose if you put a female hose fitting into the bottom of your 55-gallon drum you could gravity feed the soaker hose. My water pressure goes from 35 to 65 PSI (pressure tank settings) and the soaker hose works fine.

Anybody know how much pressure is generated by a full 55 gal drum held a foot or so off the ground? Nearly empty?

 

[Darren]

I haven't used it for watering yet but I have a 3 pt aerator that has a place for steel plate weights on top. I've strapped a plastic drum on and filled it with water for weight. It's a lot easier to unload and load an empty plastic drum than do the muscle beach thing.

You shouldn't need much to hang a drum or two on a 3 pt. It looks like you're already thinking about hanging a tank on an implement. The plastic drums have two large bungs so you should be able to adapt the top one to introduce compressed air (imagine the drum laying on its side) to pressurize the water. A small 12V compressor might give you enough pressure to hurry things along and not rupture the drum.

If you're feeling real adventurous (can I be named in your will?) you could use a steel drum and run about 90 lbs of air into it. The resulting blowout should spray water quite aways. All kidding aside, low pressure air might get the job done for you although I wouldn't expect a huge increase in the flow of water.

I like plastic because it doesn't rust. I've had steel drums rust up fast with water.

 

[tonyw]

I like Rob's idea since I've used it myself in the past. Elevating the barrels will give a little more gravity feed.
Since I have access to a water source now, I mainly use T-tape drip irrigation which uses less water and costs less than the recycled tire type soaker hoses. I do still have one area where I use the barrels though, and it beats the alternative of driving along and spraying water...plus, there's much less evaporation.

tonyw

 

[sss]

If gravity pressure wasn't enough, you could get a large boat bildge pump (over 1000GPM) for around $30-$40 and connect a hose to it. Wire it to a battery, drop it in the tank, barrel, etc. and you should have enough pressure for watering a garden. I've used a 1000GPM bildge pump to pump water from a pool and there was good flow from the end of a 50' hose

 

[Boondox]

Tried that, Bill. Not enough pressure for a soaker hose, but if you get one of those flimsy hoses with the row of tiny holes on top it manages to dribble out at a slow rate.

Pete

 

[MJB]

Water pressure from any tank will be a function of how high the surface of the water is from the point of use. Since water weighs about 62.4 lbs per cubic foot it will exert a pressure of 62.4 lbs per square foot per foot of depth. Converting to PSI gives you 0.433 PSI per foot of depth. If you had a drum about 3 feet high suspended a foot off the ground you would then have 1.73 PSI at ground level when the barrel is full and 0.43 PSI when the barrel is just empty. Hope this helps.