 Hello, my name is Chris Becker and I'm the Limestone County Extension Coordinator with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System. This is the irrigation basic section of the Grow More Give More program. So let's begin. To make a garden successful, few make more of an impact than soil testing and irrigation. Irrigation is a necessary part of any successful garden management program. The specifics of irrigation may seem a bit trivial, but there are several important questions we need to ask ourselves related to irrigation and irrigating garden. When are we going to irrigate? Where are we going to irrigate? How are we going to irrigate? And why are we irrigating in the first place? So let's cover the first question. When are we going to irrigate? This has been debated almost as much as the age old question, what came first, the chicken or the egg? Well, I don't have an answer for the chicken and egg question. I do have some helpful information related to irrigation. It's more beneficial to irrigate during early morning hours for a couple of reasons. Watering early in the morning allows the plants to take up the water that they need and reduces the amount of water you have to provide because there's less evaporation occurring. If you choose to water in the afternoon, you must realize that much of the water being used is going to be lost to evaporation. Early morning watering also allows plants to take up the water they need and provide them the time for the foliage to dry out before the evening and overnight. This will help to reduce disease issues. Where we irrigate is the next question we need to think about. Sure, the answer to this question seems painfully simple, but there's actually a lot of science that helps support the answer. Many gardeners will irrigate the garden with an in-ground irrigation system or some other overhead sprinkler system. Although this does provide the need to moisture the garden, it also creates an environment for problems. The reasoning behind when, where, how, and why we irrigate all relate to our integrated pest management plan for the garden. Remember, when incorporating the IPM principles into your garden management plan, there are four main categories for IPM controls, biological, mechanical, chemical, and cultural. A successful irrigation plan is part of the cultural control measures of an IPM program. Where we irrigate our plants, overhead, or at the ground level, has a major effect on disease prevention, weed and insect management, and the overall health of our plants. The longer plant foliage remains wet, the more likely you are to encounter bacterial and fungal diseases. Watering overhead will keep the foliage wet, whereas watering at the ground level will hardly get any foliage wet at all. When insects are able to identify stressed plants, so disease-stricken plants will soon become insect-stricken as well. When we water at the ground level, very close to where the plants are ultimately, it reduces the amount of water we use to which also reduces weed pressure, as we are not watering weeds only our plants. Watering at the ground level where the plants are truly taking up the water will contribute to a better overall health of the plant, which in turn makes them more resistant to the other issues that we discussed. Here we see two different garden plants, green pepper and basil. Both are suffering from disease. The pepper plant has bacterial spot, and the basil is suffering from downy mildew. Both diseases are exacerbated by overhead irrigation and foliage remaining wet for long periods of time. Here we see melons suffering alternately leaf spot, which like the other two are made worse by wet foliage and overhead irrigation. Regardless of whether the disease is a foliar disease or not, it will impact the quantity and the quality of your crop. Now let's look at how we're going to water. Are you going to use a soaker hose, micro irrigation, or overhead irrigation? We talked about overhead irrigation in the last few slides, so let's talk about soaker hoses. Soaker hoses have a very difficult time delivering water uniformly to all plants in the garden. Many times the plant located close to the watering source receives much more water than the plant at the end of your row. Soaker hoses are an option, but they're not the best option. Micro irrigation, or drip irrigation, is a great option. It's pressure compensated, relatively inexpensive, and water is exactly where the plants need it in a simple design and build a system. Here we simply have a soaker hose on the left picture, and on the right we have a very simple drip irrigation system in a raised bed. Here we have two irrigation heads that you might find in a below-ground irrigation system, a rotor on the right and a spray head on the left. They can be adjusted to better fit a garden need, but again, they're not the best option for irrigation. How often and long should we irrigate? Well, have you ever heard someone refer to Alabama as the American Amazon? We receive over 50 inches of rainfall annually in Alabama. We truly are blessed with the water resources we have. Alabama is considered the American Amazon in part to its abundant water resources, but also because of the unbelievable diversity of plants and animals in the state. 50 inches of rainfall is wonderful, but we don't always receive it when we want or need it. Irrigate the garden in the summer months is going to be required, but not all the time. Gardens typically will require an inch of water a week. So how often do we water? The answer to that is as needed. Now, when we water, it's much better for plants to water less often and longer duration. Water once or twice a week when needed and water for a longer amount of time. Watering every day for just a little bit is not nearly as beneficial to the plants. So water less often for longer duration. Why do we even water? Well, if you want the fruit of your labor, you'll be required to water from time to time. We obviously can't control when it rains, however, we can control when we water. Getting on a routine watering schedule will help in many ways. A routine watering schedule will increase your plants' overall health, which in turn helps the prevention of insects and disease issues, but it also will help with preventing abiotic diseases as well. Remember, an abiotic disease is one that is caused by a non-living factor. Here we're looking at two different garden fruits, watermelon and tomato. The fruit from these plants are exhibiting symptoms of what's called blossom and rot. Blossom and rot is an abiotic disease caused by a calcium deficiency. This deficiency is usually a result of a change in a plant's water supply or shortage of calcium in the soil. This issue can be mitigated by a routine watering schedule. Both of the tomato varieties we're looking at are also exhibiting abiotic diseases, cat-facing and cracking. Watering has nothing to do with cat-facing, so we will not talk about that. However, cracking of the tomato on the right of each picture is caused by watering issues. Cracking and splitting occur when rapid changes in soil moisture levels cause fruits to expand quicker than the tomato skin can grow. If you decide to use drip irrigation or micro irrigation, there are a few things to consider. Drip irrigation operates on very low pressure, often 10 psi or less. Fittings are pressure fittings and no glue is used, so overpressure can burst lines and pop off fittings. Pressure regulators can help reduce pressure to acceptable levels. There are also many different delivery options. Bubblers, micro spray heads, drip tape are all options. We will look at a few in the next few slides. Filtration is very important when working with micro irrigation. By definition, the emitters are very small and small amounts of debris, dirt, particles can clog up the systems. Designing and building an irrigation system for the garden will depend on what you're trying to grow and where you're trying to grow it. In this picture, you can see pressure regulators, filtration, different supply lines, controllers, and the various fittings that you may use to design your system. Drip or micro irrigation is a great option to deliver the water that the plants need where they need it and can be used for many different crops with many different applications. I hope today you learned a little bit about the benefits of irrigating the garden and a few ways on how you may go about doing that. I hope that you incorporate these ways into your garden so that you may grow more and give more.