Flood to drip conversion for garden and orchard: cost and steps

A flood to drip conversion for garden and orchard is the cheapest conversion in farming per acre and the one most often done in instalments, because trees go in a few rows at a time. The trick in a flood to drip conversion for garden and orchard is to buy the laterals for the rows you plant this year and the mainline for the acre you intend, since the main is trenched once and every later row has to drink through it.

This guide prices both at MRP from our listing: the first four rows, and the finished acre. It then sets out the work in order, says how watering and labour change under trees, and names the growers who should leave the basins alone for now.

Flood to drip conversion for garden and orchard: two bills, one trench

Under flood, each tree stands in a basin and a channel fills the basins in turn, so the whole alley is wet after every watering. Under drip, one 16 mm lateral runs the length of each tree row and the water lands at the trunks; the alleys dry out, the channel is abandoned, and the basin shrinks to a mulched ring.

Trees at 3 to 5 metres apart put very little pipe on an acre: at 4 metre rows a square acre is about 16 rows and 1,012 metres of lateral. That small count is why the question is never whether you can afford drip here, but how to stage it. The garden and orchard crop page says build for the mature canopy, not the sapling, and the bills below follow that.

The lateral is one of two listings. The round inline pipe has a dripper every 40 cm and waters the whole row, gaps included; it is cheaper and simpler. The plain online lateral has no drippers, takes emitters from elsewhere at each trunk, and lets you add drippers outward as canopies widen. The orchard drip guide argues for the second on a planting with decades in view.

• Already yours: the bore or well, the pump, the delivery pipe and its valve.
• On our listing: the non-return valve, the mainline, laterals, take-ups, end caps and joiners.
• Not ours to sell: the filter, a ball valve for each planting year, and the emitters if the plain lateral is chosen.

The bill at MRP: this year's rows, then the acre

Four rows of 64 metres is 256 metres of lateral, which one 300 metre coil of the round inline pipe at ₹2,689 covers with spare. Add a box of 100 take-ups, a box of 100 end caps and a box of 100 joiners at ₹6 a piece and sold by the hundred, which is ₹1,800, and the 2 inch socketed ball-type non-return valve at ₹1,440. The first instalment is ₹5,929, and the three boxes will last the whole planting.

The mainline is bought now and bought for the acre: a 3 inch LDPE lapeta of 90 metres is ₹2,160 for the run from the pump, and the 3 inch steel connector that joins it to the delivery is ₹1,053. That puts the day-one bill at ₹9,142, tax inclusive, with the filter from elsewhere on top.

The finished acre of 16 rows needs four coils of the 300 metre inline pipe, ₹10,756; with the same boxes and valve already bought in year one, the acre's lateral bill is ₹13,996 in all. In the plain online lateral, sold in 400 metre coils at ₹7,200, the same acre is three coils for ₹21,600 and ₹24,840 all in, before the emitters you buy elsewhere.

The system estimator prices the inline acre from 500 metre coils at ₹4,482 and counts fittings by the piece, reporting about ₹13,700 for a finished acre of orchard. The 300 metre coil fits an orchard's metres better, which is why the figure above is a shade lower. The drip irrigation range lists every item here with any discount running today.

The steps, in planting order

The order is set by the trench. The mainline goes in before the first sapling and is never touched again, so it is sized for the finished map and the pump, not for this year's four rows.

The pump-end fittings guide takes the head part by part, and the sizing guide covers matching the main to the pump and the full area.

• Draw the planting map to the last row, even if the last row is five years away, and size the main for it.
• Assemble the head at the pump outlet: the steel connector first, the non-return valve next, the filter you bought elsewhere last.
• Trench and lay the main along the row ends, with a ball valve from elsewhere at the head of each planting year's rows.
• Punch a take-up for each row planted this year, lay the lateral along the trunks, fold and cap the tail.
• Flush with the caps off, close them, and run each valve alone to time how long the root zone takes to wet.
• Each year, add a take-up and a lateral per new row behind the same valve, and a new valve for the new year's rows.

Watering trees, and the first years

A sapling drinks a bucket; the tree it becomes drinks from a root zone metres wide. Under flood the basin was simply made bigger each year. Under drip the water is added outward: another dripper on the online lateral, or a second line down the row in a mature block. The first season is spent learning how long each valve must run for its trees, and writing the number down.

The water saving is in the alleys and the channel, which no longer drink, and it is larger on young plantings where most of a flooded basin wets ground no root has reached. Labour moves from opening channels to walking rows: a blocked emitter under mulch shows only in the tree, months later, and the walk finds it first.

Rows planted in different years cannot share a run time, which is what the valve per planting year is for. Fertigation rides the same laterals and needs a venturi or dosing unit that we do not stock; the filter it feeds through is the one the head needs anyway.

Who should wait

Orchard drip is among the systems the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana has supported through Per Drop More Crop; the rate and the forms differ by state and by year, so check with the horticulture office rather than budgeting on a number. If you have a planting map, even a rough one, send it with the acreage and your pump and we will price this year's rows at MRP and size the main for the orchard you intend, naming the filter, the valves and the emitters as things to buy elsewhere.

• A grower on canal rotation with no pump and no bore; drip needs pressure a canal does not give, and a basin costs nothing.
• Anyone who will not size the main for the finished orchard; a main bought for four rows strangles the acre in year three, and re-trenching it is the most expensive mistake in this guide.
• A planting coming out within two years, because the saving is spread across the years the trees stand.
• A field without a filter budget, where emitters block under the mulch and the trees pay for it.