drip irrigation on a downslope

Seattle, WA

Hello,

My greenhouse is placed on a 9 degree downslope, facing east ( 8-9 Inch drop in 8 feet.) I have drip irrigation for the beds, which are 24 feet long, and it seems to work fine this first year.

However I want to plant a cornfield right adjacent to the greenhouse which will be 10 x 60 on the same slope. Previously I had tried to plant on a similar angle and the plants close to the water's input are doing fine, the ones at the very end of the 1/2" PVC pipe which is drilled for distribution, are surviving a quite nicely also. Everything else is dead.

So I would like to do this correctly the first time since we are looking at 450-500 plants for this field. How do I get even water distribution to my plants when we have a 9 degree downhill slope?

Thanks for any serious advice in this matter.

Gene So



Dublin, CA(Zone 9a)

If you use pressure-compensating drippers that should result in equal water distribution from each dripper. They're a little more expensive than regular drippers but not by that much. I've used them on a hill much steeper than yours (more like a 30-40 degree downslope) and they seemed to work fine.

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