0:00Hi guys, Jonathan here with Farmers Friend. I'm at Bountiful Blessings Farm today with my dad, John, and we're going over some questions that have been submitted by our customers. We have a

0:09question from Tony. He says, "In the video tour at John's Farm, they quickly referenced the sprinkler system and setup, wondering if you could go into

0:17more detail on how they are irrigating with the wobbler system." So, what's the the the breakdown on the irrigation system?

0:26Yeah. Well, irrigation is is hugely important and you know, there's not one solution that fits all. Um, you

0:35know, obviously there's overhead and there's drip. You know, we try to use overhead whenever we can because it's so much easier to set up and deal with.

0:46Yeah. And less expensive definitely in the long run. So, um, we have chosen the wobbler and actually we've used the

0:54wobblers for 27 years now, I guess. Um, we had the

1:03original wobblers and then they came out with the XL wobblers, but we use the wobblers

1:10because we have low pressure. And I think it's important to emphasize wobblers work best with lower pressures.

1:18And I don't know, I haven't read any kind of line of where that's too

1:25much pressure, but from my knowledge and experience, I would say if you're getting above 25 PSI, certainly I think

1:34above 30, the wobbler doesn't work well cuz it spins so fast at those pressures that it

1:41kind of atomizes the the water. And if you have any kind of wind or anything, it's it doesn't work well. Yeah.

1:50Depending on how recently the line was primed, um our our pressure ranges

1:56between 15 and 20 PSI.

2:01Uh so if you have higher pressures, I think the better option is the Netaphim

2:09Megaet, which I think Farmer's Friend also sells. But we have friends who have

2:16higher pressure that think those are the way to go. Um, and the one nice thing

2:23about the Mega Nets is they do have a built-in filter, which is easily cleaned

2:30by hand, whereas the wobblers, if you get anything too big in there, it'll clog the nozzle and you got to kind of use a pliers and take the thing apart.

2:42So that's that's one nice little feature of the mega nets. But for us with our low pressure, we found the mega nets did

2:50not cover as uniformly as the wobbler did. So anyway, that's that's kind of a

2:56background of the wobblers. So we have our tunnels and our fields all basically

3:0530 feet wide. And that width is largely because of the irrigation. Uh one row of

3:14sprinklers down the center will water that 30 ft quite nicely.

3:21How how far apart do you space them? We space them 25 ft apart. You know, and I think it's important for people to

3:29understand they're designed for most even coverage by

3:35having 100% overlap. That means this sprinkler covers over to the next sprinkler and this sprinkler is covering

3:44over to that sprinkler. So that's why we have gone with five sprinklers per 100

3:50ft rather than four. A lot of people use four, but that means going in 12 feet approximately for your first sprinkler.

4:02So that outside 12 12 1/2 ft is only going to get half the amount of water as

4:10everything in the middle. So in order to get the most even coverage, you really need to go with five sprinkler heads.

4:18For sure. that that would be, you know, manufacturers recommendations on that.

4:23And so that all of the farmer's friend uh field irrigation kits with wobblers or uh megaets have five five st

4:33sprinkler stands and and risers and all that. So yeah, for I should say for a 100 foot bed. Um so yeah, and and you

4:42can put the the road guards they call them on the on the megaets. I don't know about wobblers. Do they have I don't think we

4:50have a cover like that, but that keeps it from spraying out uh past the the ends of your beds too much, but you know

4:58Yeah. I I mean, I've experimented with those. The thing I don't like about those, it it

5:05just it diverts the water from spraying out this way and kind of just dumps it

5:11right at the base of the sprinkler. So I yeah it's you know it might be useful in your particular situation. We've just

5:20set up our fields far enough apart that you know we've got space for that that

5:29overspray I guess you'd call it. Um another thing to just point out is that

5:36with the wobbler there's different nozzles. We use a lavender nozzle. Um,

5:42I've got, you know, any good irrigation company will have these charts. Maybe

5:49they can get a closeup of this, but it it gives you the your pressure across

5:56the top, and then it tells you with the different nozzles. It goes from gold, which is 332 of an inch, up to blue,

6:06which is 732 of an inch. So, obviously the bigger the nozzle, the more water you're putting out. And technically,

6:16it'll go a little further, but we like the lavender. We found with if you go too big with the nozzles, you end up

6:25with bigger drops, which start giving you issues with soil compaction and more splash on the leaves and stuff. Water.

6:34Yeah. So, lavender has worked well for us. And lavender gets depending on your

6:41pressure, it's going to be around 2 gall per minute per sprinkler. Yeah. So, just the

6:51the overview for for your system, you guys have a header that's running along the the top edge of all of your field

6:59plots that's what 3 in uh lay flat or what are you doing? No, we well we have underground to each plot and at the

7:08corner of each plot we have a valve box and an inch and a half line which again for those who saw the farm

7:17tour, you know, we only went with inch and a half because of our our gravity flow and we wanted as

7:25we wanted to keep the pressure up as much as possible. Um, I think one inch is plenty for for most people. So, we

7:35would then come up with a a header line out of the valve box that's

7:41approximately 15 ft long. And we use quick couplings in the valve box. And

7:48then at the top of the the field and then we just have a 100 ft piece of of

7:56blue orchard tubing kind of or what do they call it? The blue stripe hose.

8:03Yeah. And um and then we have the grommets every well at the beginning and then

8:12every 25 ft, right? And um and then you just plug your your sprinkler assembly

8:20into those grommets. It's so simple and easy. You know, I first saw this at JM's farm and it was like, "Wow, this is

8:29revolutionary." because we were pounding in rebars and zip tying sprinklers to the stakes and all that.

8:38This you just push the stake in, plug the the tubing into that grommet, and you're

8:46ready to go. Yeah, super simple. It's a simple system. It works great. Um, and for those watching, the the system that

8:54you guys use here on the farm, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, is exactly what Farmers Friend sells is as our field irrigation kits with the one

9:02exception being you're doing inch and a half poly pipe for your for your main line and we supply it with 1 in um main

9:10line. I don't think you don't have the quick couplers, do you? We don't have the quick couplers. We we can do that.

9:18Sure, why not? Um, you know, we have male quick coupler ends on both ends of

9:24the 100 ft, so we can easily connect into it from either end. Okay? You know,

9:31cuz well, it's just it's hard to explain without looking at our fields. But, you know, we've got one field above another,

9:39so we can just pull it down um and hook into it from the bottom or Okay. from

9:45the top. Okay. They just have a cap on one end. Exactly. Yeah. Cool. All righty. Well, if you've been listening

9:53and you have a question on your mind that you would like us to discuss in a future conversation, feel free to click that link down below and submit your question. And until next time, happy growing.