Watering schedule

First year bines (expecting to emerge shortly) and want to set up the drip irrigation now while I'm setting up the veggie areas.

Have been using 30 minutes every two days, 1GPH for peppers and 2GPH for tomatoes, cukes, melons and squash. In wilting conditions, over 100°F consecutive days, will hit manual cycle on off days.

Will hops be happy with similar schedule, or should I add another zone?

Wow...I just came here to start a thread about this! Although Im still figuring out the system I want to go with. Care to elaborate what your using? I only have 5 second year plants that are all with in 20 feet of a water spigot.

bink00 said:

Wow...I just came here to start a thread about this! Although Im still figuring out the system I want to go with. Care to elaborate what your using? I only have 5 second year plants that are all with in 20 feet of a water spigot.

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Get something like this from Home Depot, and hook it up to valve on your sprinkler timer. My timer has two programs, one I set for lawn watering days, and the other can be set to garden irrigation.


You can kind of see it along fence, and there is second connection/valve next to the barrel on the right.

My original question was if I need to hook up another timer for the hops, or if they would be happy getting watered with the veggies, and what GPH dripper to use.

Everything I've read says that hops need around 30" of rain for the season, most of that between May and august. Of course, this is in the traditional hops growing climates with normal temperatures. It also depends on the type of soil you are growing in.

I have 8 plants, and am setting up a gravity drip system with an elevated 55gal barrel. The math I came up with says I need to apply 30gals, twice a week for most of the season, in order to meet the needs.

I'll look for the pdf's that had a nice graph of watering needs.

Okay, I looked back at some of the MSU publications and they say approximately 6 gal/week the first year and 16 gal/week (over a couple waterings) the second year, during the hottest parts of the season.

This makes me rethink how I did my math.... I guess I'll be doing 55gal at least twice a week during the hot months.

Cool, thanks. Will start with 6 gal/week by changing drippers and or duration and use same zone as veggies.
Can get pretty hot here, so might have to adjust on the fly, but at least I have a starting point now.

Have you seen anything about how to adjust watering needs to account for rainfall? Was there anything in the source that you are citing that plots how the watering needs trend over time? I would imagine 6 gallons per week, and 16 gallons per week should be netted against any rainfall during the period?

I use 1 GPH drip tape that i run 2 hrs a day every other day when it is hot and dry, but I also have a feild. Around 1 gal a day pre plant if it is well drained is fine. Drip depot has great prices and kits and also all the info needed. Good luck to you all.

L84beer said:

Have you seen anything about how to adjust watering needs to account for rainfall? Was there anything in the source that you are citing that plots how the watering needs trend over time? I would imagine 6 gallons per week, and 16 gallons per week should be netted against any rainfall during the period?

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You are correct that you certainly can adjust for rainfall, as long as you have a reliable measure near your beds. I don't think that this is really necessary though, as hop farms irrigate to around 50-60" per season. There is a sliding scale between too little water (<25" per season) and too much water (>60" per season). I'd say, as long as you are not getting 30" of rainfall between May and Aug, you can just irrigate 30" per season regardless of rainfall. If you do happen to get a good rainfall (2" plus) and want to skip an irrigation event or two, that will also be fine. You can find a close estimate of average monthly rainfall for your area here.

For reference, the math is:

• 1" of rain = 0.6234 gal/sq. ft.

If you assume a normal size crown has a root area of 3'x3' (9 sq. ft.):

• 1" of rainfall/hop crown = 0.6234 gal/sq ft x 9 sq ft = 5.6 gal/crown/1" of rainfall

If you figure, 120 days (17 weeks) between May and August, that's:

• 30" rainfall/season ÷ 17 weeks/season = 1.75" rain/week/crown (on average)
• 1.75" rain/week x 9 gal/1"/crown = 15.75 gal/week/crown (on average)

Turns out that is pretty darn close to the MSU recommended 16 gal/week/crown.

Now, the majority of that "rain" needs to happen between mid-June and harvest time. So, If you are using a drip system, I'd start with 5 gal per week and then ramp up to 10 gal and then finally to 16gal per week during mid-June until harvest. Of course, if you are outside the "normal" range for hops, you have to adjust your irrigation accordingly. Also, if you are in clayey soil, you can probably adjust down and if you are in sandy soil, you'll probably have to adjust up.

Hope that helps,