Pakistan runs on the Indus. The Indus Basin Irrigation System, a network of three major dams, eighty-plus smaller barrages, and 60,000 kilometers of canals, irrigates over 16 million hectares. It is the largest contiguous irrigation system on the planet. And…
If you farm anywhere between Bangkok and Bali, you know the rhythm: five months of rain that would drown a cactus, then five months of dry that turns clay into pottery. Nobody installs drip irrigation in Southeast Asia because they…
Polish apple grower Marek Kowalski runs 12 hectares in the Grójec region. His water bill in July 2023 hit €2,400. This July, after switching half his orchard to drip, it was €1,650. When the full 12 hectares convert, he expects…
Watermelons are 92% water. That fact alone should tell you something about how much irrigation matters for this crop. But plenty of melon farmers still run furrow irrigation and call it good enough, or switch to drip without adjusting their…
If you’re running drip irrigation on more than a couple acres, walking out to turn valves by hand gets old fast. By mid-July, when the heat is baking and you’ve got five zones to cycle through twice a day, the…
East Asia has some of the most interesting drip irrigation stories on the planet, but you wouldn’t know it from the English-language coverage. China is the world’s largest agricultural producer and its biggest irrigation spender. Japan runs absurdly precise greenhouse…
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…
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…
Drip Tape Wall Thickness: 6 Mil vs 8 Mil vs 10 Mil vs 15 Mil — What Each Spec Means for Your Farm I’ve lost count of how many farmers I’ve talked to who bought 6 mil drip tape because…
