RE: Berry irrigation requirements

Argall Family (grargall@alphalink.com.au)
Fri, 20 Aug 1999 02:40:17 +1000

My one question about the approach in answering such a general question is
to ask whether one does not first need to know if the soil is sandy or clay,
and whether its humus content is well developed, and the relative rates of
precipitation and evaporation, whether the ground is bare or mulched, etc.

Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu [mailto:owner-sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu]On
Behalf Of RALPH COLE
Sent: Thursday, August 19, 1999 11:08 PM
To: sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu
Subject: Berry irrigation requirements

Nancy-

The general rule for berries is that they need one inch of water per week.
One inch water on 1 acre = 3630 cubic feet of water/week/acre
3630 cubic feet X 7.48 gallons/cubic foot = 27,152 gal/week/acre
27,152 gal/week/acre = 3879 gal/day/acre = 2.7 gal/minute/acre

But with drip irrigation you wouldn't be watering the whole acre (aisles,
etc.) so you could probably reduce the above amount by at least half,
maybe by 2/3's.
So your per acre water use would be 0.9 to 1.4 gal/minute/acre,
or 1.8 to 2.8 gal/min/2 acres.

Three gallons per minute from the well would do it, assuming that
constant withdrawal at that rate would not deplete the local water table
too much. Of course, you wouldn't need to water when it rains, or in the
off-season.

Anybody feel free to correct the math or concept.

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