Engineering Commons^™

Evaluation Of Retrievable Drip Tape Irrigation Systems, Charles M. Burt, Jess T. Barreras

BioResource and Agricultural Engineering

California growers of lettuce, broccoli, celery, and cauliflower have long been leaders in drip tape applications. Starting in the early 1990s, large acreages of buried, subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) were installed with the intent of leaving the tape in the ground for up to 10 years (Burt and Styles, 1999). Tape burial depths were typically 20 - 25 cm below the soil surface. Although yields and irrigation efficiencies typically increased, there were numerous challenges with SDI. Since the tape was buried, such issues occurred as gopher damage, problems with root intrusion, soil back-siphonage when the system was shut off, damage …