Planning An Efficient Water Flow System For Small Farms

Posted on: 24 August 2017

Whether you're upgrading from a home garden to a farm plot or making a family farm more efficient, water distribution is a vital part of productivity. From reducing physical strain from carrying water to different parts of the farm to making plant watering smarter, there are a few systems that can be added to low-cost areas as you plan even bigger moves. Here are a few fluid pump management points to help you upgrade your farm at smarter, cost-staggered tiers:

Connecting Pumps To Different Well Types

If your farm is a main source of income, spending a lot of money on equipment that only provides small gains doesn't make a lot of sense. There may be a temptation to get the "best" equipment or the newest thing on the market, but a smarter solution would be to start out at one pump.

For well water, make sure to use a pipe well system. A wide, dug well with a bucket for water access is charming, but you need to have consistent control of your water to pull a decent water flow without losing a lot of water to evaporation. A simple metal or polyvinyl chloride pipe in the ground is fine, but if you already have a wider well and can't dig another, you'll need a few accessories.

The pipe well system simply needs an adapter to attach to a water pump. These electric, fossil fuel, or solar pumps are available at different horsepower and power consumption levels, and the more suction you have from a full seal, the less power you need to pump water out. It's best if you can mount the pump directly to the pipe, but a hose is a good second choice.

For a wide, dug well, you'll need to connect a hose to the pump and drop the other side of the pump into the well. The suction will be there, but any drops in water level will require more hose length and work to get access to water again.

Do More With Less At The Pump Level

Once the pump is connected, it's all about getting the water to different farming stations. The best way to achieve low-cost delivery is to use as few pumps as possible, which means making use of gravity, hose decline, and direct management.

A powered pump will create a water force at a specific strength, which can travel fairly far depending on how powerful the main pump is. For gardens, you may only need one pump to get to all plants. For farms spanning several dozen acres, you'll need to make sure that the water power doesn't drop off.

Make sure that the hose or watering infrastructure turns only when needed. A turn or bend in the water path becomes a collision area, and even the slightest curve will slow down the water to some extent.

If there's a major need for turns and the water power gets too weak for your different farming stations, either add an inline pump or dig another well to attach another pump. It's best to keep your wells and pumps in organized, symmetrical locations if underground water sources allow.

Contact a fluid pump professional to discuss pump models and accessories to make your farm watering more efficient. 

Check out a website like http://www.compressor-pump.com for more information and assistance. 

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