089 Drip Emitters vs Micro Sprayers - Which is Better? Rototillers vs Chipper/Shredders. Plant of the Week: the Redbud Tree

Thinking of adding a drip irrigation system to your garden? Good idea. Drip systems conserve water and more effectively irrigate the root systems of your plants. But, you have choices. Should the water be delivered via drippers…or microsprayers? Each has its advantages and drawbacks. Our favorite retired college horticulture professor, Debbie Flower, weighs the pros and cons involved with a drip irrigation system. 

Thinking of buying a rototiller for your garden? Our resident soils expert, Steve Zien, has a better way to improve your soil with that thousand dollars you might spend. And yes, it, too, is a fun, loud, garden implement. 

And the plant of the week is a tree that is putting on a show throughout the United States in early spring - the redbud. Warren Roberts of the UC Davis Arboretum tells us all about it.

It’s all on episode 89 of the Garden Basics podcast, brought to you by Smart Pots. And we will do it all in under 30 minutes. Let’s go!

Pictured:
In-Line Emitter Drip Irrigation Tubing and a Micro Sprayer

Links:
Smart Pots!
Chipper/Shredders
Rototillers
Drip Irrigation Systems
Farmer Fred Rant: Drip Irrigation-How Long Do I Water?

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Transcript

089 Drip vs. spray. Rototillers vs Chipper/Shredders. The Redbud Tree.
29:57

SPEAKERS

Debbie Flower, Steve Zien, Warren Roberts, Farmer Fred

Farmer Fred  00:00

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by Smart Pots, the original lightweight, long lasting fabric plant container. it's made in the USA. Visit SmartPots.com slash Fred for more information and a special discount, that's SmartPots.com/Fred. 

Farmer Fred  00:20

Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information, you've come to the right spot. 

Farmer Fred  00:32

Thinking of adding a drip irrigation system to your garden? That's a good idea. Drip systems conserve water and more effectively irrigate the root systems of your plants. But you have choices. Should the water be delivered via drippers, or micro sprayers? Each has its advantages. Each has its drawbacks. Our favorite retired college horticultural Professor, Debbie Flower, weighs the pros and cons involved with a drip irrigation system. Thinking of buying a rototiller for your garden? Our resident soils expert, Steve Zien, has a better way to improve your soil with that $1,000 that you might spend. But don't worry. It, too, is a fun, loud garden implement. And the Plant of the Week is a tree that's putting on a show throughout the United States in early spring, the Redbud. Warren Roberts of the UC Davis Arboretum tells us all about it. It's all on episode 89 of the Garden Basics podcast, brought to you by Smart Pots. And we'll do it all in under 30 minutes. Let's go. 

Farmer Fred  01:36

Recently, Tim left a message at the Get Growing with Farmer Fred Facebook page. And it was a very good question having to do with watering your plants. Debbie Flower is here, our favorite retired college horticultural professor, to help us tackle this very thoughtful question from Tim. He says, "When choosing drip emitters for perennials or non native plants, is there a way to tell if certain perennials should use a drip emitter or a spray emitter on a drip irrigation system? Could a spray emitter cause diseases on certain plants if they hit the leaves?" And I would add to that, where would you use a spray emitter, if indeed they do cause problems on plants? And thinking about that, Debbie, I'm thinking, well, if I'm growing a ground cover, and that spray is always going to be over the top of the plants, that might not be a bad way to go. Especially if it's some sort of ground cover that tends to root as it travels.

Debbie Flower  02:37

Yes, that would be a good place to use spray.  I'm a drip fan. I like to use drip for almost everything. But the place that I do have spray is in my lawn, which is a ground cover right? Mine happens to be a no-mow lawn. But when you've got lots and lots of roots and grass produces huge quantity of roots and rooting ground cover, one that spreads, would benefit from spray, because the spray will not get tied up in the roots of that plant. And as the plant if it's a spreader spreads, it needs water where it goes. And so the spray is is able to send the water in those directions.

Farmer Fred  03:20

The downside with a spray is that if you're growing plants that get taller than eight inches or so, that spray will get blocked eventually.

Debbie Flower  03:30

Correct. Right. Spraying can be difficult that way.  It's great. The other place I use a little bit of it, I use a micro spray is in the vegetable garden. Because I'm starting from seed. And I don't want to rely on the location of the drip emitter to plant the seed because that means I'm planting the seed in exactly the same location every year. And that will change the soil texture there because I'll have lots of roots that are there, it makes more work. It would mean I'd have to dig up the garden and work more in it. So I like to use a spray that will go everywhere. Also I tend to have better drained soil in my raised bed in the vegetable garden and spray spreads the water all over the surface. Whereas drip emitters put water right where they drip, and that makes sort of a carrot shaped wetting pattern. And if that root from the plant is not in that carrot shape in the well drained soil, it will not grow, it will not get water. So spray is good for really well drained soil. If you have sandy soil, you probably want to use spray in many places. Or if you're using soilless media in a container or have modified your raised bed with soilless media, then those are places where I would use spray.

Farmer Fred  04:49

Yeah, generally if you have raised beds that soil does drain quickly, but narrowly,  in those narrow cylinders you're talking about. They've tackled that problem at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center run by the Sacramento County Master Gardeners. In their raised beds, they're 15-20 feet long and about four feet wide. They have many drip irrigation lines with inline emitters built into them running through that bed, they might have on a four foot wide bed,  five lines running parallel the length of the bed, but they also have many sprayers on the corners and on the edge in the middle, that will cover that area with water when they do plant seed, which makes perfect sense. And so you've got the benefits of both systems.

Debbie Flower  05:41

Are they on separate valves

Farmer Fred  05:42

Yes,  they are on separate valves.

Debbie Flower  05:45

That is an excellent idea. I have only the micro sprayers down the sides and in the corners and in the middle on my raised bed, which is also four feet wide and and use that all the time in my vegetable garden, mine is not as big. And I have had success with that. 

Farmer Fred  06:02

One of the downsides of using micro sprayers is it's attractive to a lot of gnawing critters, like squirrels and rats who want the moisture. And if you have quarter-inch tubing connected to those sprayers, they tend to put holes in that quarter-inch tubing. And also those sprayers tend to get knocked around, they tend to clog a bit so you need more supervision of sprayers to make sure that they are working.

Debbie Flower  06:28

Yes, the drip irrigation emitters have come a long way in their engineering in that they are generally pressure regulated. So they're very good for changes in elevation slope. If you take them up a hill, you'll get just as much water out of the one at the top of the hill as you will at the bottom of the hill. And they are self cleaning. In many cases, the water goes through so fast that the gunk gets dropped out. But you do need a filter at the beginning of the system, you do need to observe the length of your run and how many emitters you have, how much water you can get out of each emitter add that up. You don't need to you don't want to exceed certain limits. And you can only use certain lengths like in the quarter inch line you can with inline emitters, you only want to use 10 feet or so. But yes, I have experienced the problem with what I assume is rats because I know I have rats in my neighborhood, with holes in in my emitter line. So the thing to do when you turn on the the emitter system, and this is true with spray or drip lines, is go out and look at it, turn it on. We typically run them at a time when we're maybe asleep or not home. The advice is to apply the water very early in the morning, when there's less evaporation. So you lose less water to the environment. And before people get up and start using taking showers or whatever. So the pressure is high enough, although drip lines do need a lower pressure. But turn it on when you're there, walk around and look for hole, look for for fountains, look for problems, and fix those, a minimum of once a year.

Farmer Fred  08:09

Yeah, and not only look, but also listen. Because if you have a leak in a drip irrigation system and a half inch tube, you may be hearing the hiss of water. And you may see very, very wet spots in some locations. And if you maybe pull back the mulch, if you have your line buried under mulch, maybe you might discover Old Faithful.

Debbie Flower  08:32

Right. I was working in my greenhouse the other day with the irrigation system, rearranging it for the plants that are in there currently. And a line that I thought was solid was spraying across the greenhouse. And I don't know, the door is shut. I don't know how it got a hole in it, but it got a hole in it. And so yes, I had to fix that. Absolutely, turn it on. When you're there, listen, look and fix the problems.  

Farmer Fred  09:00

By the way, when we talk about inline emitters systems, we're not talking about the little tabs that you poke into a half inch tubing. These inline emitter systems have built in emitters. The emitters are actually built into the half inch tubing, you can't see them. There's little slits in the half inch tubing that allow the water to come out in these pressure regulated turbulent flow systems that are excellent and they're very easy care. They are the most reliable drip system that you can install.

Debbie Flower  09:32

Yes, I had them at my last house for 17 years and I never had a problem other than the occasional animal attack.

Farmer Fred  09:41

How often did you flush the system?

Debbie Flower  09:43

I didn't.

Farmer Fred  09:44

Oh, thanks.

Debbie Flower  09:45

We are on a municipal water supply with a reasonable pH of something around neutral. There was very little in the water system to build up.

Farmer Fred  09:57

 If you are on a well, you probably have certain impurities that you won't find in a municipal water system. Anybody with a well and a drip system knows that you can get a lot of sediment you can get some calcium buildup to around the emitters and so you have to be very judicious about flushing the system once a month so when you install that drip irrigation system make sure you include the end caps that make it easy to take off, run the system for a few minutes to flush out any impurities especially the sediment, and then reattach the cap. That's important to do on a well system.

Debbie Flower  10:34

It's also an important thing to have those caps on the end if you get freezing in the wintertime you want to drain the system for the winter so that because water gets bigger when it turns into ice and it could cause lots of damage to the system if there's water sitting in those pipes. So taking those ends off and letting it all drain out for the winter is an excellent idea as well.

Farmer Fred  10:55

So, Tim, the short answer to your question, and of course we took the scenic route to get to the answer to your question, the short answer would be we prefer drip emitters to spray emitters you just have to position the lines close enough so that all areas of your soil have an overlapping water footprint.

Debbie Flower  11:12

Yes and some of the reasons we prefer include maintenance. We mentioned easier to maintain than a spray system but water conservation and whether you're in a place like we are where, water shortages are a regular thing. Or even if you're in a place where you're getting lots of water, water is a limited supply on earth and wasting it is wrong and so drip lines provide the water at the root zone and much less is lost to evaporation than it is with a spray system you also get a uniform application because of the pressure regulation the end of the line produces as much water as the beginning of the line the top of the hill produces as much water as the bottom of the line and as Tim mentioned, the drip system which is at the ground does not cause disease on the plants he mentioned rose and blackspot. Absolutely if you overhead irrigate, many plants you will get black spot or other fungal diseases on those plants if the water stays there. So time of irrigation. If you are using spray it is very important do it in the morning so the plant has time to dry out but if you can use drip instead you won't have to face that problem at all.

Farmer Fred  12:21

And in this Q&A let's add a quick tip. It's not a bad idea to every now and then take your garden hose, with a shower setting, and go out to your garden and wash off the leaves of your plants.

Debbie Flower  12:34

very true

Farmer Fred  12:35

Do it in the morning

Debbie Flower  12:36

mm hmm. So they will dry out nicely in the afternoon and that will remove the dust that has accumulated on them and this is especially for people like us who live in places where it does not rain in the summertime and also there are wildfires in the summer. Lots of gunk builds up on your plants in the summertime so wash them off and they will be able to get more sun and do more photosynthesis and be healthier plants.

Farmer Fred  12:59

Yes. Unfortunately, here in California we have come to realize what smoke and ash from wildfires, which could be hundreds of miles away, but find their way to your yard, can do to impede the progress of plants and especially winegrapes.

Debbie Flower  13:17

yes

Farmer Fred  13:18

yes

Debbie Flower  13:19

i think there's going to be a whole new industry with smoky wines.

Farmer Fred  13:22

Yes there is. I'd be looking for a smoky wine near you. Well, now,  Tim i hope that helps. Debbie Flower, thanks for your help on this.

Debbie Flower  13:30

You're welcome. thank you fred

Farmer Fred  13:36

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Farmer Fred  14:35

Here on the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, we like to offer up quick tips Steve Zien is here with 45 years experience in organic horticulture and soil science, what the heck would he know about garden toys? Well, let's find out, because maybe you have a spare 1000 bucks and you want a good garden toy so you can feel like a real farmer. And you're thinking, I'm going to get a rototiller because everybody needs to till their soil. I think, Steve, people would be surprised to learn that there's a much better ways to spend that $1,000 if you want to help out your garden.

Steve Zien  15:08

Yeah. What happens when you till the soil is, you destroy the soil structure. And so structure means that your soil has a variety of coarse spaces. And that's really important, especially in our area, because we have a lot of clay soil and we have poor drainage and so we have only very very tiny pore spaces, and everybody thinks you till the soil and it loosens it up and creates a wide variety of pore spaces. But the problem is, after you start irrigating or the rain comes, the fine clays that you all loosened up with that tillage starts to leach down through the soil and fills up and plugs up all those large pores so in actuality tillage reduces soil structure and reduces the large pore spaces so it compacts, actually compacts your soil in the long run.

Farmer Fred  16:01

A lot of people don't realize that for a plant to thrive besides soil and water, it needs air. And rototilling basically destroys those air pockets.

Steve Zien  16:11

Yeah, it's absolutely critical to have as much air in there as well. That's where the better soil structure is. You have more drought resistance, more spots for nutrients and soil biology. The roots and the microbes can all move through there. Also, the tilling kills a lot of the microscopic organisms in particular. The two major organisms that you find as far as massive numbers the two biggest guys in quantity are bacteria and fungi. Bacteria are little one-celled critters and they don't really get harmed too much by tilling but the fungi, they're like long strings in your garden, and they get sliced to death with a rototiller and what's interesting is when you till the soil, by killing the majority of the fungi, you change the ratio in your soil between bacteria and fungi increasing the amount of bacteria and what kind of plants prefer living in bacteria-dominated soil? Everybody's garden favorite, they're called weeds. So if you want to grow weeds, till your soil.

Farmer Fred  17:26

my heavens i imagine to speaking of long stringy things in the soil that a roto tiller isn't doing worms any good.

Steve Zien  17:33

Exactly. Where they're slicing and dicing,  it's just  very disruptive to the ecological system of the soil and it really sets your soil back. The USDA's healthy soils webpage talks about that a lo,t and it's mainly for farmers because they're trying to convince farmers to do less tillage, but it also applies in the backyard garden as well.

Farmer Fred  18:00

Exactly. Now, I have seen amazing things happen with my soil just by mulching the top of the soil, adding three or four inches of mulch that was free, that arborists drop off, of chipped and shredded tree parts. And because they're all different sizes, they break down at different times. But it's amazing the earthworm activity that i've seen increase since applying three to four inches of mulch on the soil and just leaving it there.

Steve Zien  18:30

Yep,  those guys are your natural rototillers, but they're only going to really do an excellent job of tilling the soil by creating air channels all the way to the surface if you have some sort of mulch or compost on the soil surface. If that's there, they will come up every night, feed on that, and then when the sun comes up they'll go back down. And so they're basically opening up drainage channels and root channels so that the water and the roots can move through your soil. If anybody has ever, by chance, touched the worm, they're really slimy. That slime is food for all the microscopic organisms that help your plants grow.

Farmer Fred  19:12

Oh, well, there you go. But i still have this $1,000 burning a hole in my pocket. What can i spend it on to feel like a farmer?

Steve Zien  19:20

A chipper-shredder. Something that will create that mulch that you just talked about.

Farmer Fred  19:25

All right yeah. The chipper shredders vary in price from a few hundred up to several thousand, but if you have trees on your property or your neighbors have trees or shrubs or you're removing shrubs or portions of trees, why put it in the trash? Put it through your chipper shredder, and then put it on your soil you don't have to dig it in. Just lay it on top of your soil and voila, magic.

Steve Zien  19:49

Exactly, yeah. The old school was you want to add organic matter into the soil and we used to all recommend tilling it in,  working it in. You used to have a rototiller. But we've learned that's very destructive to the soil and you're better off just putting it (the mulch) on top.

Farmer Fred  20:10

What's great is the more we're learning, the easier it's getting.

Steve Zien  20:13

Yeah, yeah.

Farmer Fred  20:15

It works like a charm. Right, Steve Zien, with 45 years experience in organic horticulture and soil science. There you go, folks, if you're going to spend 1000 bucks on a big garden toy, get yourself a chipper shredder, not a roto tiller, you're going to make the worms in your soil and your plants very, very happy. Thanks, Steve.

Steve Zien  20:35

You're welcome.

Farmer Fred  20:39

The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast has a lot of information posted at each episode: transcripts, links to any products or books mentioned during the show, and other helpful links for even more information. Plus, you can listen to just the portions of the show that interest you, it’s been divided into easily accessible chapters.  Plus you’ll find more information about how to get in touch with us. Leave an audio question without making a phone call via Speakpipe, at speak pipe dot com slash gardenbasics. it’s easy, give it a try. And you just might hear your voice on the Garden Basics podcast! If you’re listening to us via Apple podcasts, put your question in the Ratings and Reviews section. Text us the question and pictures, or leave us your question at: 916-292-8964.916-292-8964. E-mail: fred@farmerfred.com . If you tell us where you’re from, that will help us greatly to accurately answer your garden questions. Because all gardening is local. In the show notes you’ll find links to all our social media outlets, including facebook, instagram, twitter, and youtube. Also, a link to the farmerfred.com website. And thanks for listening.

Farmer Fred  22:06

Warren Roberts is with us, with the Plant of the Week. He's going to get serious about Cercis. That would be the redbud and you can find redbuds throughout the country. There are Eastern redbuds, Western Redbuds, Chinese redbuds, they are throughout the country. Warren, I think a redbud is just a one gorgeous plant and man oh man, those rosy to purplish pink blossoms in early spring are fabulous.

Warren Roberts  22:32

They certainly are. One of the wonderful places to see red buds in abundance is Winterthur, which is one of the DuPont gardens in Delaware, I believe. And the owner of Winterthur was particularly interested in the view. The beautiful flowers of the redbud and also the creamy yellow color of many wildflowers. So when the redbuds are in bloom at Winterthur, that's what you see. Those are the colors. The Eastern redbud, as we call it,  is a very useful small tree, and the whole genus is one of my favorites because it's so dependable. So it's a beautiful color. The typical color is kind of a slightly purplish pink. Why it's called Redbud? Well,  before the flower opens, the buds actually are a kind of a bourbon red. So I I'm guessing that that's how it how it gets its name. There are I think about 30 species of redbuds around the world and quite a few a lot of them in China and in the temperate parts of Asia, but they're also redbuds in Mexico, and over much of the United States. And of course the Mediterranean. The redbud in Europe is Cercis silaquastrum, sometimes called the Judas tree.

Farmer Fred  23:59

Oh, Happy Easter by the way.

Warren Roberts  24:01

Oh, yes. Happy Easter. That tree in Rome is used as a street tree. It is quite amazing because the flowers will come right out of the trunk. It doesn't have to be on a young stem at all. And that's kind of true of the whole genus. Sometimes you'll have flowers coming out of the main trunk of the plant. Typically also they bloom before the leaves come out. So the color is undiluted. And it's quite an amazing site to be seen. A grove of redbuds or individual redbuds because the color is typically rather strong and very beautiful.

Farmer Fred  24:43

I guess our  friends in the eastern part of the United States really get to enjoy the Cercis canadensis, which is the true tree form of the redbud, the eastern Redbud, because it's a tree that can get to 35 feet tall. Whereas the ones that are seen out here tend to be kind of shrubby.

Warren Roberts  25:05

Yes, the redbud native to California and to Arizona typically are smaller and really, almost always shrubby. And sometimes the the trunk, when it gets older, will die but the plant will send up sprouts, that can continue to come up. So you cut back the dead part, and then enjoy the new stems. The new stems are traditionally used in basketry. And in California amongst the Native Americans, which is true even today because people still use it to make baskets. At a certain time of year you cut the long stems that come sprouting up from the base, and those could be then peeled and split and then used for a basket. For the color design in the baskets, the stems would be gathered during the dormant season when the bark is tight to the stems. The redbuds that we have available in horticulture, the main species is Cercis canadensis, with many different select ones and varieties. The Western Redbud, Cercis occidentalis. There is a white flowered form which is occasionally available but mainly it's pink. Cercis chinensis is a traditional harbinger of spring in China. And you see it in  traditional paintings from China and Japan. There's also one from Afghanistan Cercis griffithii, we have that at the Arboretum at Davis. And it has gray green leaves and the same flowering seasonality as the others.

Farmer Fred  26:59

Does it have fall color?

Warren Roberts  27:00

Fall color in redbuds. I have seen in the wild in California, of red was the color up in the fall red, occasionally a little bit of pale yellow. But there are forms that have colorful of other species which have colorful leaves all year round. They're almost too many to mention, really. But they're beautiful selections of redbuds available in most nurseries. Oh another thing about the Western Redbuds are the pods. After the flower blooms, the pods are often green,  often they are purple, and show color all in through the summer. The disadvantage is that the pods don't tend to fall for the plants. In the wintertime, you have what looks like kind  a dead shrub because of all these pale brown or tan pods that persist on the plant. But it's certainly worth growing. The plant is easy to grow. The beautiful seasonality in regards to the spring color of the leaves are beautiful as well. And there are also different forms to choose from.

Farmer Fred  28:17

Well, the bean pods, to any horticulturist, is winter interest. The redbud. It's a plant that can be planted just about anywhere. And yes, even here in California, you can plant Eastern red buds, you don't have to stick to just the Western Redbud. There are plenty of good Eastern Redbud varieties that do well here with nice color. And I would think perhaps vice versa, as well, that maybe some of those Western Redbuds might do well back east.

Warren Roberts  28:44

I think they would. I don't know how they would do with the wet summers. But it might be worth a try. And that there's so many so many different forms of the Eastern redbuds, and there's the Texas redbud, there's a Mexican redbud and so on. Lots of things to choose from.

Farmer Fred  29:00

Cercis is the genus.

Warren Roberts  29:02

So redbud is the common name, Yes.

Farmer Fred  29:06

And you can just call them 'bud'. The redbud, check it out and check out the UC Davis. Arboretum online, at arboretum.uc davis.edu. It is a botanical showcase. Located in Davis, California. Warren Roberts is the superintendent emeritus of that fine establishment. Warren, thank you, for telling us about the redbud.

Warren Roberts  29:29

Well, thank you for the opportunity.

Farmer Fred  29:33

Thanks for listening to Garden Basics with Farmer Fred, brought to you by Smart Pots. Garden Basics comes out every Tuesday and Friday. It's available on many podcast platforms including Apple, Spotify, Google, IHeart, Stitcher and many more. And if you're listening on Apple, please leave a comment or a rating. That helps us decide which garden topics you'd like to see addressed. And again, thank you.