Roller Pump for drip irrigation

[wordman077]

Anyone ever use a roller pump attached to the tractor pto to supply water from a 55 gallon barrel for garden irrigation? If so, any problems?

 

[pacerron]

woops wrong page

 

[Briar Hill Brittanys]

A roller pump is a "positive displacement" pump. The cut and paste is from Wikipedia:

"A positive displacement pump must not be operated against a closed valve on the discharge side of the pump, because it has no shut-off head like centrifugal pumps. A positive displacement pump operating against a closed discharge valve will continue to produce flow and the pressure in the discharge line will increase, until the line bursts or the pump is severely damaged, or both."

You'd need a relief valve if going the drip irrigation route.

I use one with a tote tank to flood the furrows at our market patch. Usually just run the pump a little over idle to get a nice flow going, that doesn't carve out the furrows. I pump from the high side of the garden, it runs slowly down to the end of the rows. If it starts running off, I move the hose to the next row. The furrows alongside the row were created by my disc hiller. Mark

 

[wordman077]

Thanks Briar Hill. I might use it the same way you do. With a hose. Do you have a 4, 6 or 8 pump?

 

[TRR]

It's my understanding that drip irrigation uses very low pressures like about 1 or 2 psi. So why not just have a water tank on the high side of the garden and let it slowly run out into your drip system? I have an orchard where I fill a bucket from a hose on a timer. The buckets have a 1/4" drip hose out the side about 1" off the bottom and runs over to the tree.

 

[Briar Hill Brittanys]

Thanks Briar Hill. I might use it the same way you do. With a hose. Do you have a 4, 6 or 8 pump?

It's a 6 roller, Silver Series Hypro. The Silver Series is supposed to be "Round Up Ready". Got it off ebay, NOS, for a song. I fill up the tote at the river using the same pump and hose, and have to haul it to that garden location. I like TRR's suggestion, I'd need a couple of more totes. There are 3 patches about 140' square. Each patch has several rows. Not sure how I could make the drip work, but open to suggestions. Mark

 

[jenkinsph]

You can use a roller pump but you might also consider a small 12volt pump for this task. Something along the lines of an rv water pump with auto shutoff, doesn't consume much power either.