subject: The History Of Drip Irrigation [print this page] When it comes to keeping the garden green and saving resources, the age old technique of drip irrigation is a favourite with gardeners, farmers and professional horticulturalists alike. The process ensures that plants are watered without any wastage of water or of fertiliser whilst enabling maximum growth from plants and greater yields from crops. The success of this garden watering method has meant that even the most arid areas produce a harvest sufficient enough to support remote communities.
Drip irrigation is simple in its success; it is only the mode of delivery that has changed over the years. In the earliest years of agriculture, in ancient times, farmers would use a clay pot buried in the ground to deliver water directly to a plant. By filling the clay pot with water, which slowly seeped into the ground, plants benefitted from a direct and continuous supply of water. This developed into a technique sometime in the 1800s where the clay was made into pipes instead of pots. This enabled a more time efficient mode of watering that has only been modified in a slight way through the use of plastics.
The drip irrigation kits today use a hose system which has drippers at specific intervals to deliver water from a tap. For convenience many gardeners and horticulturalists use a timer to turn the water supply on and off according to the requirements of a particular type of plant. This provides a convenient solution to garden watering, especially if away on holiday. The advantages of using drip irrigation commercially are far greater. The yields are generally higher as the way the water is delivered is much more gentle, thus avoiding soil erosion. There is less leaching of nutrients from the soil using this method, which means healthier plants as well as saving money on fertilisers.
Delivering water straight to the root system also prevents disease as foliage remains dry. With other techniques, such as a sprinkler, wet foliage can rot or in sunnier climes, can burn; the damage caused can be potentially devastating resulting in food shortages if a crop fails. There are various types of irrigation attachments that can be put to effective use for different types of crop. Micro sprinklers often replace dripper heads for trees and for vines as the wide root distribution of these types of plant require a more widespread watering technique, creating a versatile method of watering gardens plants or a field of crops.
