WaterMate : Installing sprayers & drippers – Harvst

Installing drippers and / or sprayers is a personal choice, depending on what you are growing.

The range of micro irrigation emitters available is huge. We've provided a set of common choices to get you started.

See the support article on each of the pumps to learn more about maximum capacity:

Combinations of sprayers / drippers / misters

We recommend you use only drippers OR sprayers on a single WaterMate zone. The sprayers will cause pressure drop in a loop, which will prevent the drippers from working as well as they could.

It is however possible to have a few drippers on a loop with only a few sprayers (ie pressure stays high) - the best way to see if this is going to work for you is to try it out.

Misters or foggers are best used by themselves (without any other type of emitter in the same zone), as they require a higher pressure to work properly.

Soak hose is best used by itself on a zone, as it also requires a higher pressure to work properly.

Sprayers

Sprayers are best for covering a large area of plants. One 360 degree sprayer nozzle can cover approximately 1m2 from a position of 1m high. Sprayers are available in a range of flow rates and a range of spray angles from 90 degrees to 360 degrees. We include a selection in the WaterMate kit to get you started.

Installing sprayers

Fit spray nozzles either directly to the distribution pipe or on sections of 4mm hose. We find that they work well when inserted into the top half of the LDPE distribution pipe. This helps prevent dripping, and ensures the pipe is filled before the sprayers start, giving better water distribution.

Drippers

Drippers are good for injecting water to the roots of larger plants, such as tomatoes, peppers, beans and so on. The supplied 4 litre per hour pressure compensated drippers provide a good flow for most uses. You can also get 2 litre per hour and 8 litre per hour from our website - all can be used in the same system.

We recommend you have rings of drippers connected to 4mm hose, each ring connected to the distribution pipe with a take-off. This helps distribute water around the whole greenhouse more effectively, especially with short pumping times.

Installing drippers

Punch a hole in the LDPE distribution pipe where you want the dripper ring take-off.
Insert a 4mm take-off connector.
Add 4mm irrigation hose to the barbed connector.
Connect drippers to the 4mm line in groups of no more than 10 per take-off.

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