How to maintain and unblock drip irrigation systems or drip tapes

Drip irrigation is one of the most innovative farm technologies in the world. With this technology, farmers have recorded significant yield and profit. The technology behind the trickle form of passing water to crops can also saved water usage significantly.

How you maintain and unblock or unclog your drip irrigation
system or drip tapes can go a long way in elongating the lifespan of the
system.

A lot of farmers buy and install their drip irrigation
systems without knowing how to maintain them. When these drip tapes get
blocked, they do not also know how to unblock or unclog them.

What are the common problems with drip irrigation and how they can be solved?

How to maintain drip irrigation systems or drip tapes

Installing your system rightly

Ensure that the drip tape emitters face upwards when you
install the drip irrigation lines. If the emitters face downwards, the emitters
may get blocked or clogged easily. The emitters are the small hole like parts
on the drip irrigation lines or drip tapes.

Run the drip irrigation system daily

If you can, make sure you pass water through the drip
irrigation systems or drip tapes daily. This will ensure that any deposits on
the drip emitters will be easily removed or flushed out.

Use only water soluble fertilizers

Never use fertilizers not recommended to be used in drip
irrigation systems, there are water soluble fertilizers that are specifically
recommended to be used in drip irrigation systems or drip tapes. Do not be
tempted to use the conventional type of NPK 15:15:15 sold in the open market in
Nigeria in your drip irrigation system.

Use a filter

If the quality of your water is not too good or your water
has silt or dirt in it, you are advised to use filters. Some filtration systems
have automatic ways of removing dirt without human intervention.

Flushing

You should endeavour to flush your drip irrigation systems
daily, weekly, fortnightly or monthly. I strongly advise you flush your drip
irrigation system weekly. If you heavily fertigate daily, you may want to flush
your drip irrigation system daily.

Flushing of drip irrigation systems involved the opening of
the drip tapes so that water can get out of them.

How to unblock or unclog drip irrigation systems or drip tapes

Acid Treatment

Sulfuric acid, phosphoric acid, nitric acid and
hydrocholoric acid are some of the chemicals that can be used to unblock or
unclog drip irrigation systems or drip tapes.

These chemicals can be passed into the drip tapes with
fertigation equipments like the venture injector or dosing pump. You need to be
very careful when using acids to unblock your drip tapes. Google and hand
gloves should be worn.

Excess acid should not be passed to your soil. You must also
run the drip irrigation system for a fairly long time so that the acids will be
removed from the root zone.

Iron, Manganese Treatment

If the water used for your drip irrigation schedule has a
high amount of iron and manganese. The water must be treated so that the drip
emitters will not get blocked or clogged.

Chlorination Treatment

Chlorine can also be used to unblock or unclog drip
irrigation systems or drip tapes. However, care should be exercised when using
chlorine.

If you need more information on how to maintain or unblock
your drip irrigation system or drip tape, kindly contact us through sales@veggiegrow.ng or 08025141924.