Irrigation guides for specific crops
If you grow stone fruit, drip irrigation pays for itself faster than on almost any other orchard crop. Peaches, plums, cherries, and apricots all share one trait that makes drip such a clean fit: the crop you pick next summer…
Herbs are the cash crop that drip irrigation was made for. They’re high-value, shallow-rooted, and unforgiving when it comes to wet foliage. A basil leaf with overhead water sitting on it for six hours might as well have a “welcome”…
Carrots are picky about water. Not in the way tomatoes or peppers are. Those crops wilt dramatically when they’re thirsty and you get a clear signal. Carrots punish you silently. You won’t know you got it wrong until harvest, when…
Potatoes are picky about water. Not in a dramatic way. They won’t wilt at the first sign of dry soil like lettuce will. But get the moisture wrong and the damage shows up where you can’t see it: underground, in…
Peppers are drama queens about water. Give them too much and the roots suffocate. Give them too little and you get blossom-end rot, sunscald, and fruit so small they look decorative. Walk the line right and you pull 25 to…
Most corn farmers I talk to think drip irrigation is for tomatoes and peppers. Row crops get center pivots or furrow irrigation. That’s just how it’s done. They’re not wrong about the history. Drip on 80-acre corn fields was impractical…
If you grow lettuce, spinach, kale, or salad mixes and you’re still running sprinklers overhead, you’re probably burning money on water and fungicide you don’t need to spend. Leafy greens are the crop category where drip irrigation makes the most…
Tomatoes are picky about water. Give them too much at the wrong time and you get cracked fruit, bland flavor, and fungal problems that spread through the field in a week. Give them too little during fruit set and the…
What’s Actually Different About Vegetables The first thing I tell anyone setting up drip irrigation for vegetables: throw out the generic spacing chart that came with your drip tape. It was written for row crops and orchards. Vegetables don’t behave…
