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Entry Date
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Location
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Sunday, June 02, 2024
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Matt D.
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Connecticut
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Entry 46 of 116 |
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Irrigation: Timers
The left-hand splitter goes to a Y-splitter with one hose (marked in orange) going to a “live” as needed hose for when water is needed “now” for whatever reason. The other splitter goes to a 10psi pressure reducer and then a DIG 710A timer. This is a standard timer (compared to the other one) and uses regular city water to irrigate the entire hoop house early in the season until about pollination time. The reason for irrigation of the full structure is when areas are not irrigated the soil and peat (that was added earlier in the season) can become hydrophobic and present many challenges to rewet. So, this timer is connected directly to the drip tapes and is used from the time the structure goes up until about pumpkin pollination time (since no fertilizers are added during this time).
The right-hand slide goes to a DIG 710AP timer is technically a propagation timer so it has some different features beneficial to growers propagating plants which means is has a repeat cycle function. However, when originally purchased this was used to control the mist system, but this proved to be inefficient so there is a new system installed (more on this later) that is fed via the orange and white black hose that can be seen in the lower right corner. The timer now does not connect to the drip tapes, but to the 275-gallon water tank and this timer is responsible for filling the tank.
Having each timer dedicated to one task may seem a bit odd, but this was used originally for a slightly different irrigation set-up but has now been repurposed to this current and more efficient configuration. Also, it does offer the advantage that if a timer was to fail in-season a quick hose change and reprogram of the other timer can have the system back to normal in about 10min. so there is not plant irrigation interruptions as the issue is analyzed and corrected.
DIG Controller Model Comparison : https://www.digcorp.com/controller-comparison/
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