Fertigation methods: Help me build a system

[BigVanVader]

Ok so I am getting to the point where I need to fertigate my garden. Just no time for mixing bucket after bucket by hand. I have seen various methods on YT etc but I think I either want to go with a Mazzei system or splurge for a Dosatron.

I was curious if anyone has experience building a Mazzei system and if so could you give me a parts list and/or walk me through the process. Also curious how you like/dislike your system. The peach/strawberry farm near us uses a cheap basic hand built Mazzei system which kinda surprised me. I figure if they use it for 25 acres of peaches it should work great for my 1/2 acre.

Dosatrons are expensive but I'd be willing to pay a couple hundred bucks for an inline unit if it simplifies my life and is more dependable, problem is idk which one I would need. I am using sub-surface drip https://www.plumbersstock.com/rainbi...FUg8gQod3nYISw on a timer at the moment hooked to my outdoor spigot. I have great pressure (too much really, had to turn it down cause was blowing fittings apart) so I could hopefully use some of the bigger capacity units.

Any help/info/suggestions greatly appreciated!

[AKmark]

If you want to save a few bucks look at the Dosamatic, I have friends who use them and they have no problems. I like Dosatron, but they both get the job done. You can also buy a couple of large tanks and mix your fertilizer in them, hook up a pump, and the needed parts for delivery. That will work too.

[PureHarvest]

The challenge you will have with a mazzei, is getting enough flow to create the siphon. I am currently using .45gpm emmiter drip tape. About 1/2 is 6" spacing and 1/2 is 12" spacing. If I just want to fertigate 600', I cant get siphon unless I hook a small piece of tape to my layflat mainline and pop a small hole in it to increase the flow coming out of the system.
Your product is list at .9 gpH. Mine is .45 gpM in a 100' of tape.
So your gpM in 100' would be 100'x.90/60min=1.5 gallon per minute per 100'.
So you could flow 3 times the amount of water that I can in 100'. That might work.
I will trying the mazz on 1,400' of tape this week and let you know how that goes.

Mazz is easy to build. I can take a pic of mine and post it.

If you do an injector you will need more than 1.
I have 3 on one panel. One for tomato formula, one for cal nitrate, and one for pH up. This assumes you want to inject concentrated stock solutions into your water line.
Otherwise, mark's point is one you could steer to. Make up a 275 gallon tank, drop a pond pump into it, and send the solution to your crop.
Not sure how the 3-part mixes work for soil growing, so maybe there is a formula you can buy that is one ingredient where you could make one stock solution and inject that into your water line with just one injector. I'd rather do that than screw with the stock solution tank/sump pump. Mixing up batches of solution gets old quick.
Mazzei is probably in between injecting and stock/sump tank for ease of use.
Mazz will require math on your part to figure how much actual N P K etc you want to supply at each feeding and how to make a concentrate to deliver to the given area you want to feed. i can show you that.

[PureHarvest]

Example:
I want to supply my strawberry crop with 2 lbs of ACTUAL nitrogen per acre per week (all commercial recs are pounds per acre).
So I break down my area to a fraction of an acre.
I have 4 beds that are 3'x200', so that is 4x600= 2,450 sqft.
2,450/43,560 (sqft in an acre)= .05 acres.
2lbs of n/acre x .05 acres =0.1 lbs of actual N neede for my area.
Now, the fert I am using is 4%N, so 0.1(needed lbs of N)/.04=2.5 lbs of my 4% nitrogen fert.
So I will take a 5 gallon bucket and put in 3-4 gallons of warm water and mix in 2.5 pounds of my fert. I drop my siphon line in there and run my system until the bucket is empty. From experience, I know this will take about hour or so. So when the bucket is empty, I know that 2.5 lbs of fert has been delivered to my 4 beds and that the 2.5 lbs of fert contains .1 lbs of actual n., which is the equivalent to putting down 2 pounds of actual n on a per acre basis.
make sense?

[Cole_Robbie]

I bought the lowest flow Mazzei I could find, and the 1.5 gpm my high tunnel uses is not enough flow to make it work. I had to hang the bucket of fertilizer about 8' in the air to get it to work.

Hozon is the other cheap brand. It's a brass fitting. I think it requires more flow than the smallest Mazzei.

I also had an EZ-Flow for a couple years. I think they're cheaply made, but they work. My tank eventually ruptured from letting it sit in the sun .

[Worth1]

The Miracle grow Liqua feed system works all the way down to 0.2 GPM.

There is a thread here where I hacked the thing and made adapters so you can use any fertilizer you want in a bigger container.

Worth.

http://www.tomatoville.com/showthrea...=40694&page=11

[BigVanVader]

Originally Posted by PureHarvest

The challenge you will have with a mazzei, is getting enough flow to create the siphon. I am currently using .45gpm emmiter drip tape. About 1/2 is 6" spacing and 1/2 is 12" spacing. If I just want to fertigate 600', I cant get siphon unless I hook a small piece of tape to my layflat mainline and pop a small hole in it to increase the flow coming out of the system.
Your product is list at .9 gpH. Mine is .45 gpM in a 100' of tape.
So your gpM in 100' would be 100'x.90/60min=1.5 gallon per minute per 100'.
So you could flow 3 times the amount of water that I can in 100'. That might work.
I will trying the mazz on 1,400' of tape this week and let you know how that goes.

Mazz is easy to build. I can take a pic of mine and post it.

If you do an injector you will need more than 1.
I have 3 on one panel. One for tomato formula, one for cal nitrate, and one for pH up. This assumes you want to inject concentrated stock solutions into your water line.
Otherwise, mark's point is one you could steer to. Make up a 275 gallon tank, drop a pond pump into it, and send the solution to your crop.
Not sure how the 3-part mixes work for soil growing, so maybe there is a formula you can buy that is one ingredient where you could make one stock solution and inject that into your water line with just one injector. I'd rather do that than screw with the stock solution tank/sump pump. Mixing up batches of solution gets old quick.
Mazzei is probably in between injecting and stock/sump tank for ease of use.
Mazz will require math on your part to figure how much actual N P K etc you want to supply at each feeding and how to make a concentrate to deliver to the given area you want to feed. i can show you that.

Thanks y'all. Right now I'd rather just keep it simple and have a big tank that is siphoned into my drip if I can cheaply/easily set that up. Just remember I'm terrible at math and need something simple or I will likely get confused

[PureHarvest]

Get a 275 gallon used IBD tank
Usually on craigslist under $100.
Fill with water and add powders. Drop sump pump (pond pump) into bottom of tank. Direct the tube to spray the solution back into the tank to stir/mix it. Probably plan on doing 100 or 200 gallons at a time to have room to mix. There should be gallon hash marks on the tank. I used to stop filling at 250 so I had head room to shoot the solution back into the tank while mixing.
When thoroughly mixed, hook the tubing to your lines or build a manifold with valves to individual rows/lines.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by BigVanVader

Thanks y'all. Right now I'd rather just keep it simple and have a big tank that is siphoned into my drip if I can cheaply/easily set that up. Just remember I'm terrible at math and need something simple or I will likely get confused

The math problem will be easy to overcome if you set your mind to it.

I figured it out for the MG contraption and then forgot to write it down.

What I like about it is you can hook it up to any sized tank you want.
This weekend I am going to use it to run two sets of drip systems in my beds.
Maybe.
Worth

[PureHarvest]

Big Van, just wondering which direction you are going with fertigation.
I ran my Mazzei on Friday.

I was able to meter out 4 gallons of concentrate to my garlic and strawberries.
1,400' feet total tape length. It took about an hour to empty the bucket.
My plants jumped.

garlic 5-1e.JPG

I also finally installed my injector panel. I bought all the components to build dosatron's nutrient delivery system including the guardian monitor (inline constant ec/ph meter).
I customized it to make it cheaper than just buying all the stock components.
It ain't cheap up front, but will save me a lot of time mixing up nutrients using a big sump tank. I look at the cost spread over 5 years, not what the build cost was (about $2,200).
I spent about 6 hours per week last year mixing up nutes every 2 days with the 275 gallon sump tank. Annoying. 6 hours times 16 weeks is 96 hrs per year x $12.55 (the base labor rate I use in all my budgets) = $1,204 in labor. So it will pay for itself in year 2.
Now i figure I will be making concentrate tanks about once per month. I had a chunk of money left over from a grant that I needed to spend to offset the income to avoid taxes, so the purchase was much easier to make than if I was just doing it on my own.

injector.jpg

[Nematode]

Thats a good looking panel.
Do you have filters on the concentrate suction for the dosatrons?
Those open barrels will fill with bugs.

[PureHarvest]

I have lids to put on and the end of the tubes have a screen filter.

I was just roughing it in on that photo.

I need to raise it up higher and hook up my control box/timer.
Also need to hook my 1/2" tubing to the valves.

Pretty excited to get this thing up and running.

The Bluelight monitor seems to be much better quality than Hanna. My hand held Hanna's probe bit the dust (and I took good care of it). Explains why my first batch of fert a month ago kept showing a ppm of 2,200 even when I know I mixed a 1/2 rate seedling solution (I triple checked all my calculations and weights). Might also explain why my reading were off last summer.
Then the pH reading started bouncing all over the place and I figured out my probe was shot.
The Bluelight monitor runs constant and is easy to use. Based on using the two brands, albeit different models/applications, I would lean towards a Bluelight product for those looking to buy a meter.

[frankcar1965]

I have been toying with the Add-it injector, no electricity and they claim there is no pressure loss which I always find annoying. Plus they say that is evenly proportions from start to finish. They have from small to really large ones like for big irrigation systems.
http://fertilizerdispensers.com/

[Cole_Robbie]

Originally Posted by PureHarvest

The Bluelight monitor seems to be much better quality than Hanna.

...The Bluelight monitor runs constant and is easy to use. Based on using the two brands, albeit different models/applications, I would lean towards a Bluelight product for those looking to buy a meter.

I think you mean Bluelab, right?

[PureHarvest]

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

I think you mean Bluelab, right?

Yes , thanks for catching that. Burning both ends this time of year lol.
Got it injecting fert yesterday. Everything seems to be working well. What a timesaver this is gonna be!