Smart Irrigation Controllers: Do They Really Save Water? Here’s What the Numbers Say I’ve been installing irrigation systems for years, and I’ll be honest: I was skeptical about smart controllers at first. Another gadget promising to solve everything. But the…
Water costs are climbing. In parts of California, growers saw irrigation district rates jump 40% between 2020 and 2024. In southern Europe, drought restrictions are no longer exceptional — they’re the new normal. And in sub-Saharan Africa, farmers who depend…
Every season, I see the same confusion in farming forums and WhatsApp groups. Someone asks “should I use drip tape or drip line?” and gets twenty different answers — half of them from people selling one or the other. The…
You’ve heard the pitch. Soil moisture sensors, automated valves, smartphone-controlled watering schedules. The sales reps make it sound like you plug it in and your water bill cuts in half. But when you’re running a 5-hectare vegetable farm, every dollar…
Roughly 70% of the world’s freshwater goes to agriculture. And depending on the method, up to half of that never touches a root. It evaporates. It runs off. It sinks past the root zone into groundwater that nobody pumps back…
The first sign is always the same A tomato plant looks thirsty even though the system ran that morning. You crouch down, poke at the soil, and sure enough: bone dry around one emitter while the one two feet away…
I get asked this question a lot. Homeowners want to know which system to install, and they want a straight answer. After installing both for over a decade, I’ve got one: it depends on what you’re watering. But for most…
Most people overthink drip irrigation pressure. They buy the biggest pump, crank it up, and wonder why their emitters are blowing off the tubing. Or they hook up a gravity-fed barrel and can’t figure out why the far end of…
