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Hancock county, Illinois | Thoughts on traveling gun information. Do & Donts to make it successful. Recommended machines? |
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Centralia, MO | It takes a lot of time to cover much acreage. It can be pretty labor intensive. I don't have experience with the hard hose units but the soft hose unit I ran was a never ending breakdown looking for a place to happen. Add in some fun things like carrying pipe across a field on a hot day. |
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south west Iowa | I have had both, hard hose easier to move knock down less corn
soft hose, have to wind up muddy hose when moving, you will knock down 3 % of crop to set up
both will have uneven pattern when wind is blowing.
only plus I can think of you can put it away when done and not have to farm around it |
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michigan | like already said they are lots of work and depending on how many acres you are trying to cover it is a slow process. the hard hose machines are alot easier than the soft hose machines but still work. if you are just trying to cover smaller areas or dry corners they will do the job but if all possible and you plan on using for more than one year look at putting up a pivot. we are running one on a field of potatoes this year were a pivot will not work because of power lines and with it so hot and no rain we can not keep up by the time we get all the runs pulled the spuds are already hurting from not getting back to the first pull quick enough. they will work but if all possible go with a pivot. |
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Northeast Louisiana | Been there, done that. Personally, I would try pretty much any other method of irrigation before going down this road. They are labor and fuel intensive, and not very reliable. IMO, it's worth putting up a pivot unless your land is just too irregularly shaped for it. We've precision leveled most of our land and furrow irrigate, which works better down here.
A gun will take one tractor to pull the reel, one to pull the cart out, and if you are laying hard pipe, one to pull the pipe trailer. You will have to have a big, high pressure well which will take a big engine to pull.
If you're set on getting traveling guns, do it right and bury an underground pipeline with risers at every pull set so that you don't have to lay hard pipe all the way every time you move it. But I would still advise against going this route, unless you just don't like sleep.
Edited by Deadduck 7/22/2012 21:37
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| Worst part about them is laying pipe................If you bury mains, they aren't bad to run. Just pull up, hook up to the main, pull the gun out and go with water. |
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Flandreau, SD | is there irrigation that isn't alot of work?? lol just some is more than others!! :) |
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Amherst WI | I would avoid them at all costs unless you have small irregular shaped fields.
A good flow is 350 maybe 400 GPM. Add in moving the traveler around and it is a full time job to water 100 acres, and you will never keep up if it gets as dry as this year. |
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NE Georgia | GO WITH A PIVOT!!! But if you do get a hard hose only get one with a 4 1/2 inch hose so you can put out enough water to last until you get back to that pull there is a big difference in the amount of water in a 4" and a 4 1/2" |
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| Make sure you get one with a computer so you know exactly when it will be in-they are useless without it! |
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Sumner GA, Located in southwest GA, | If you are serious in using travellers or hard hoses, DONT HODGEPODGE THE SYSTEM TOGETHER. You just doom yourself to failure. #1. You need to know your soil's waterholding capacity. #2. You need to know your soils percolation rate. #3. You need to plan it out, map it out, set up your capacities to be able to make it back to your start point at a reasonable rate. #4. Where are you getting the water. Water available makes a big difference in what to expect from your system. This isn't a case of just buying some portable pipe and a pump and a used traveller and being in business. Here, I want 550 GPM availible PER Traveller. 7 pulls is about the limit on a 3 day cycle, per traveller. Ideally, you always have one setup and running. Best larger systems I have seen have 2 travellers running at any one time and a third one set up ready to go when one goes out. It is going to take water, pressure, and horsepower. I am running 100 PSI at the gun on my last traveller pull, works well, but that takes alot of power and energy. Maintenance is king, maintain your equipment, your breakdowns become less frequent. This is just basics, lots of tools and experience to help you do it right.
PS: If a pivot will work and you are in it for the long term, it WILL be the best option. Travellers still have their place, but pivots sure are nice, also take alot less energy to do a good job. |
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Chilliwack BC | If you value your sanity, dont try to pump manure through them. |
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Jersey Shore, PA | Definately bury the line. Easily the worst part is laying out the pipe. If you have a big enough motor to run a couple at once it's not so bad.......still slow though. Go with a bigger diameter hose and keep the pressures up to put as much on as possible quickly. Ours all run off of the turbine, but I've heard way less babysitting with the ones with a honda motor on them to pull the gun in. They stay consistently on the rate you set whereas our turbine ones need to be checked at each new hose layer for accuracy.
Most of our fields won't work with a pivot. Even the ones that would are prone to flooding and I wouldn't think a pivot would take that?
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The Internet | I have been using what is referred to on here as hard hosed travellers on and off for 22 years and have been using them here every year since 2001.
I've never seen a soft hose machine.
It looks to me that if you have the space for a pivot, use one of those. Travellers (we call them reels) have their place in our small odd shaped fields.
It is hard work and labour intensive. If possible you want to use as little portable pipes as possible. It does defeat the object of a reel, but if you are set on using one, the bury as much main as possible and have hydrants where your runs are.
All of the machines I have ever used are turbine driven. Each time there is a new layer of pipe, the slow the reel down to maintain the pipe pulling in speed. Use a machine with electronic controls, you can pretty much set your watch buy them.
You don't need to be there when the finish. The controls should close the valve, then the pump will shut off on high pressure. I have used a system with an electric pump that you open the hydrant, it senses the drop in pressure and fires the pump up. You can now buy systems to fit to diesel pumps that allow you to start the pump over the phone. You just dial its number and it has 3 goes at priming and starting. IIRC they also call you will codes if things go wrong.
The guns are affected by wind. Here it gets windy in watering season and we don't have enough pressure due to a weak main (not pump output) to fire the water far enough through a big enough nozzle with out damaging the crop. So we use one of these http://www.briggsirrigation.co.uk/irrigation-boom-four-wheel.php it is pulled in place of the gun. The do a very good job. The company does export them and their service is very good.
The output for ours to put 15 mm of water on is about 35 meters per hour pulling in speed with a width of 72 meters. Factor in about up to 2 hours, certainly 2 man hours, to move the machine, set the boom up and get it running. The machine has a 110mm hose.
Do not ever buy a secondhand machine. They are being sold for a reason.
Briggs market reels, Bauer are good machines. |
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Almond Wisconsin | I curse my hard hose reel. But am using it on some rented ground that was intended to be dryland but not this dry!! Very inefficiant |
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| Avoid it unless you want to have job security for your teen-age kids. |
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NC Indiana | If you're just looking to see if irrigation will work on your land, then just buy the pivot now, been there, done that. If you can't use a pivot, then bury the pipe and buy what you can affort. Yes soft hose machines are more works. I own 4 soft hose machines for what I have in my hard hose machine. I would go w/ the water drive if you go that route as we have more troubles w/ our turbine drive units (stop brakes and Lovejoy couplers). The hard hose is nice bc it is ready to move, but I feel I get more water on w/ the soft hose machines and we can cover more pulls w/ 4 machines watering vs 1 machine. |
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Chester, GA and Griffith, IN | 8991 - 7/22/2012 19:20
Thoughts on traveling gun information. Do & Donts to make it successful. Recommended machines?
You already know some of the basics about Traveling gun from reading everyone's post so far.
1. it is cheaper than other methods
2. it is more labor intensive
3. it breaks down more often, has the chance to.
Dos
1. Check on it regularly, even in the middle of the night. (don't want it to stop walking and sit in one spot for two hours and give you a boggy mess)
2. When it gets near the tractor don't count on the ball to stop the traveler be there to stop it manually. (we've never had one walk up our tractor because we never trusted the ball to stop it)
3. Let it sit at the end of the run for ~30 minutes to water the end.
4. Unless you are watering a short crop like peanuts consider mowing where the run will be.
5. if using soft hose make sure to put plenty of curve in the hose to prevent kinks.
6. After turning the gun on at full pressure go remove all kinks from the hose near the traveler.
7. NEVER step over the cable when it traveler is walking. It is a slim chance but the chance is the cable could break and severly injure a leg. I've seen the aftermath once it wasn't pretty. |
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traveling gun irrigation
