We are doing a lot of research in these last few days. We came across a dew irrigation system that had a lot of similarity to our D.R.I.P.S. project. It is a system designed by an Israeli company Tal-Ya. Here are few photos of their product (notice the irrigation lines):
At first it was very disconcerting—here was our project, all done! But then we noticed that there were several things that were different. One is that Tal-Ya said that they never were able to collect any dew! The plastic forms that they’ve built are very thin—they only cost $1 to make. So while the forms are good at shielding the ground and even preserving some moisture underneath, they are not collecting any water and they are not transferring that water below the evaporation level.
In a previous blog post, Tim wrote about using a metal or a clay ring that would lay directly on the ground—it would collect the moisture and protect the ground from the sun, leaving a central hole for the plant to grow. So Tal-Ya’s product is essentially half of the D.R.I.P.S. idea: they developed only the “cone” part without the “drill” part. So our system would probably work better. (Stay tuned, we are finishing up our experiments with potatoes.)
Tal-Ya’s product is a proof of concept, sort of. And it shows that there are several other advantages to placing the system directly on the ground:
- It prevents the ground next to the plant from over-heating during the day.
- Irrigation water and rain water is channelled directly to the plant.
- The weeds don’t grow around the plant, reducing the maintenance and keeping the water for the harvest.
So all of these things would also apply to the D.R.I.P.S. if we have the “on the ground” component.
[…] than plastic. Plastic is likely to be the same temperature as the air (that’s why we believe Tal-Ya system doesn’t work to collect […]
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