Irrigation is essential for every garden and landscape. Inadequate irrigation is the problem of most landscapes due to which the plants and crops suffer for growth. Most irrigation systems are not smart enough to sense the watering requirements of plants and shrubs in a landscape.
Landscape owners need to work themselves to ensure that their irrigation requirements are met, and their plants or crops are growing well. There are some types of irritation systems that can sense the watering requirements of plants, but they might be expensive for landscape owners.
Therefore, it is best to improve your irrigation systems to have adequate irrigation for your plants. Let us know some creative ways to improve an irrigation system.
Review your irrigation system
Landscape owners need to review their irrigation systems. Auditing the irrigation system will help you to know whether it is functioning correctly and fulfilling the watering requirements. It helps you know about any technical problems that need to be fixed at the right time.
For example, the motor pumps, pipes, deep well turbines, diesel engines require regular maintenance. Reviewing your irrigation system helps you to check the working of these components, and you can fix anything that needs repair or maintenance. The maintenance includes oiling, greasing of components, filling or replacing the oils, and replacing the worn parts.
Perform an audit of landscape
It is essential to perform an inspection of your landscape. Regular checks help you know whether your plants, crops or shrubs are getting enough water or not. You can analyze the health of your plants, shrubs, and trees and check any pest infections. Knowing the watering requirements of your landscape can help you to improve your irrigation system.
Install water monitoring sensors
The modern irrigation systems come equipped with water monitoring sensors that sense the watering requirements of landscape according to the moisture in the soil, temperature, and other climatic conditions. If you have a conventional irrigation system, you can upgrade it or install water sensors in your landscape to sense your watering requirements.
Upgrade your irrigation system
The conventional irrigation systems are not much efficient and consume high electricity and water. They are less efficient than present-day irrigation systems. Therefore, upgrading outdated irrigation systems is essential to improve their working and efficiency. Here are some tips to update and improve your present irrigation systems.
Install Sprinklers in your system
Sprinkler irrigation is one of the most popular types of irrigation systems used today. These systems consist of sprinklers fitted according to the crops or gardens and watering requirements. Sprinklers spray water in the form of a thin mist that supplies only the amount of water required. Installing the sprinklers can reduce the wastage of water, that occurs in traditional irrigation systems.
However, these systems are not suitable for windy areas as water evaporates quickly with the wind. If you don’t want to get a new irrigation system, you can install sprinklers in your present system. You need to consult a professional to install sprinklers, and it also requires installing some more pipes to create a network.
Drip irrigation
Drip irrigation is another popular method of irrigation to reduce water losses. Unlike sprinklers, there is no to little rate of evaporation and other losses of water. Drips are small injectors installed in the network of pipes that sprays water near the roots of the plants. The roots of plants absorb the water from the soil, and hence there is very less loss of evaporation and flow of water. You can install a new drip irrigation system or upgrade your present system by installing some pipes and drip injectors.
Schedule the irrigation system
Every landscape has different watering requirements that depend on the types of plants, crops, shrubs, trees, and climatic conditions. Landscape owners should access the watering needs and their frequency as per the plants and location.
Moreover, they can schedule the watering according to the requirements. There are some rain sensors and soil-moisture sensors available in the market that you can install on your present irrigation system. These sensors shut off the irrigation equipment automatically when there is rain or access moisture in the soil.
Final Words
These are some ways to improve your present irrigation system. Using these methods, landscape owners can improve the efficiency of their watering systems and reduce the water losses due to evaporation and deep seepage in the soil.
