This lecture will be an introduction to understanding how much water your plants require to be healthy.  Whether they be very low, low, medium or high water use species they still need to be irrigated properly so as not to waste water.  Lori will start this discussion...

In California we use a document titled "Water Use Classification of Landscape Species (WUCOLS).  This document is available for download as a PDF or Excel file.  Follow the link I've provided to access the document. Note - this information was designed for use in California.  If you live elsewhere you'll need to consult with your local nurseries, agricultural extension or master gardeners to get accurate information.

There are two types of drip irrigation - point source (where we run an individual emitter or series of emitters to each plant) and line source (where the emitters are built in to the drip line and then this is installed in a grid fashion).  Point source works on a gallons per hour basis while line source works on a precipitation rate formula.

In this lesson we'll look at both systems.

Starting our discussion on how evapotranspiration rates are used to help with water management

In Part Two I'll go over how to determine how many gallons per day (GPD) your plants need when you're designing and installing point source drip irrigation.

Now we'll look at calculating run times when using inline drip irrigation.  With point source drip we used gallons per day, with inline we'll be working with precipitation rate application.

In this lecture we'll cover the steps required to determine the correct amount of water for fruit trees in this garden.  Although we're using in-line irrigation, we'll calculate the water needs based on point source principles.  At the end of this lecture you will be able to use this same procedure to design your system and provide the water your trees require and not waste water by over-irrigating.

Knowing how much water your plants need is one thing - knowing how long to water and how to use evapotranspiration rates in your irrigation scheduling to apply the right amount of water is another.  At the end of this lesson you'll be able to use your local ETo rates to create a run time schedule for your irrigation for each month of the year.  Exercises available in the Resources section will give you the opportunity to practice using the formulas necessary to create these schedules.  All the math formulas are available for download.  The formulas I am providing are the same as in Lecture 9.

Good water management is about knowing when and how much water to apply.  With inline drip systems you're working with precipitation rates and evapotranspiration for your location as well as plant factors to determine how much water to apply and how long to run your system to achieve this.  In our last lecture we covered irrigation run times for new or high water-use landscapes. In this lecture we'll use the same formula again, but this time for low water-use plantings.

In our last two lectures we looked at precipitation rates in water management.  In this lecture we'll change course a bit and look at how you would determine gallons of water your landscape requires and based on whether it's low, medium or high water use.  This formula is used in your initial water budgeting.  We'll look at two different landscapes for comparison.  In the first example we'll calculate how much water 1000 square feet of lawn needs to stay green and healthy and in the second example we'll compare this number to 1000 square feet of vegetable garden.  The difference may surprise you!

In this lecture we're in the field at our site where the crew, led by Seth Wright of Wright Landscapes, will explain how to install inline drip in an established planting bed.  These folks are real-world gardeners and directing them was a bit like herding cats, but you'll get some tips and tricks from watching this lesson.

Vegetable beds can be a challenge, but with some forethought you can irrigate effectively and efficiently.  Homeowner and retired farm adviser Janet Caprile explains her method of managing her vegetable beds.  I think you'll get some really good ideas from this talk.

Many (but not all!) California native plants require little water through the summer months.  In this garden the established native plants are all low water use.  But, they are planted on a hillside and like all irrigation systems, drip requires a minimum pressure to operate properly.  Ginny Babbitt will explain this concept in her presentation.

Weather based controller can save both time and money.  In this short lecture I'll discuss some of the basic concepts of smart controllers without going into a lot of detail.

Thanks so much for being a part of this course!  Lori will do a brief wrap-up of all that we've covered.  don't forget to access the resources we've made available to you throughout the lessons.  See you next time!!

Originally filmed for my course "Drip Irrigation Design and Installation for Beginners".  This lesson will be a tour through my own vegetable garden showing how I laid out and installed the drip irrigation for my beans, tomatoes and squash.  In the Resources you'll find a downloadable PDF of the dimensions and grid layout for my raised bed garden.