Greenhouse & Hoop House Irrigation

Now we are going to talk about options for irrigating the hoophouse. Of course there is no rain that comes in here which is a blessing because the rain brings crop damage and diseases however you are responsible for every drop of water in this hoophouse. Come March and April the hoophouse uses lots of water so you're going to have to make a plan. You can see Shenandoah is hose watering which is OK given that we have the water and we are out here every day but in the long run we are going to have to come up with a better plan that doesn't tax the domestic well so highly. We sometimes use a hundred or more gallons or mare a day to keep the hoophouse irrigated. Ultimately we want to put in drip irrigation. Drip irrigation is a system by which the water is emitted right on the soil surface of just under the surface. Right where the plants need it. So you waist less and there's less labor. With an established drip irrigation system you could water this whole hoophouse with the switch of a, with the flick of a switch. Notice how Shenandoah is washing the plants she avoids a direct stream she's using the mister the spraying mist to gently distribute the water. She washes over the bed of salad greens and she comes back for a second time allowing the water to peculate down rather to slosh or run off the surface. Lastly let me talk about another option for irrigation. You can see we have this hose which goes to a gravity flow tank which is caught off the house harvested from the house and flows down here in the summer months by gravity. Now our prototype was collecting three hundred gallons of water but we really were we are really looking at building a ten thousand gallon water catchment system and sense the hoophouse is a downhill from the house and the potential catchment tank we can irrigate this entire hoophouse through gravity.