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De Forest, WI | You can do it with sweet corn. It’s a lot of work to setup. A traveling gun is a lot easier if you have water on a small patch. Kifco B110 or B140 would be good for that size.
I did drip tape on sweet corn for two years and stopped due to the setup time/removal time.
You will want standard 5/8” tape with 12” emitter spacing. Probabaly .34gpm/100ft rate.
You will need a header line of some sort. 1.5” or 2” ldpe poly pipe (toro blue strip oval hose or similar), 15 psi pressure regulator, some fittings (insert/camlock for pump), hole punch (or big nail) for tape to header hookups, screen filter 140 mesh or smaller. For end of drip tape just cut a couple inches off, fold the end over three or four times and shove into the “sleeve” you just cut off. Don’t bother buying drip tape ends.
You will need one tape every other row. You essentially water two rows with one tape. Meaning one dry row one wet row. You will cut needed water in half this way and they corn won’t care if it is only getting water on one side. Depending on your soil type you may have to put a whole inch on to get the water to move laterally to reach the plants. If it’s all sand you will need more water during each irrigation event.
At the end of the season you get to pull all the tape out and wind it up to save for a year or two or put in the recycle bin.
Drip tape for us is now only used on high dollar crops that are grown on plastic. That is mostly tomatoes and peppers. The only real upside with drip is you can water when it’s windy and it goes where you want it.
Best prices are at nolts Midwest produce supplies or nolts produce supplies on the east coast. Their related Amish so they don’t gouge you on price. | |
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Drip irrigation
