Welcome back to our series! After establishing the critical raised beds in Episode 1, the next foundation for your 1000-plant avocado orchard is installing a robust and efficient drip irrigation system.
Avocado trees have a high water requirement, making the quality and reliability of your irrigation setup paramount to ensuring proper growth and nutrient uptake.
1. Identify Your Water Source and System Design
The first step in planning your system is identifying your water supply: Is your water coming from a borewell or an open well?
Once the source is known, you must consult a professional supplier. We prefer Netafim systems due to their quality, but any reputable supplier will do. They will:
- Measure your field and analyze your raised beds.
- Design a system map tailored to your specific orchard, taking the water source into account.
2. Essential Components for Quality Irrigation
A standard drip system needs specific components to function effectively, especially when managing an intensive avocado orchard:
- The Venturi for Fertigation: This is arguably the most critical component. We recommend investing in a high-quality Venturi injector. This device allows you to mix fertilizer directly into the irrigation water—a process called fertigation. Since avocado plants benefit from fertilizer almost every day, ensuring the Venturi functions perfectly is crucial for consistent plant growth.
- The Gravel Filter: If your water source is an open well, a gravel filter is essential. Water from an open well often contains impurities that can clog the sensitive drip lines. The gravel filter cleans the water first, followed by the system’s standard filters, ensuring only clean water reaches your plants.
3. Divide and Conquer: Irrigation Zones
For an orchard of 1000 plants, managing irrigation and fertigation as a single unit is inefficient and risky. The solution is to use underground lines to divide your farm into manageable irrigation zones.
Why are zones important?
- Water Scarcity: If you experience low water availability or insufficient pressure, zones allow you to irrigate or fertilize one section at a time, ensuring each area receives adequate resources.
- Targeted Management: You can have, for example, three zones—an upper, middle, and lower—each controlled by its own valve. This provides granular control, allowing you to turn off irrigation or fertigation to a specific zone if needed, simplifying your overall management.
The establishment of these zones is key to scaling your operations and ensuring all 1000 plants receive precise care.
Next Steps and Resources
Note that planting the Avocado Orchard is just the beginning. It is also crucial that we manage the plants well in order to maximize our yield and profits. For that, Avocado plant nutrition and fertigation becomes the most important thing to master.
If you are interested in learning how to correctly interpret your soil, leaf, and water tests to create an effective fertigation schedule, we have an Indo-Israel Avocado Fertigation Course to help you achieve the kind of rapid growth we’ve seen in our 2-year-old orchard.
Stay tuned for our next episode as we continue our journey on How to Plant 1000 Avocado Plants!
