Installing Our Irrigation System

My husband has been investigating how to put in the appropriate vineyard irrigation ever since we received a grant from the NRCS for well drilling and irrigation. He sourced all of the irrigation material from local stores and as well as online. We finally broke ground for the irrigation installation on November 4, 2015 using a ditch witch. After two hours of using the rented ditch witch, my husband threw in the towel and resorted to his backhoe. Using the backhoe was a little tricky, because he needed to dig a trench between the black locust endpost and the anchor rod that we had put in last winter. (As I watched my husband work, I thought that he would really do well with those games that you pay a dollar to pick up a stuffed animal.) After 2.5 days, the first trench for installing the zone manifolds and the lateral drip lines was dug. What follows is a short clip of some of the work we did in installing the trench for the manifold for the lateral drip lines as well as the main line trench from the well.

Our irrigation system has 7 zones so we had to dig a trench for the manifolds. Beginning from the west side of the vineyard, we have 4 manifold trenches. The first three trenches have plumbing for 2 zones and the last trench has plumbing for 1 zone so we have 7 zones in total. Each zone can be controlled manually or electronically. Here is a short clip on how we put in the manifolds:

All in all, it has taken us about 2 months to put in the irrigation system.