He Built Low Cost "Towable" Irrigation Systems

He Built Low Cost "Towable" Irrigation Systems IRRIGATION Irrigation Systems 31-1-26 "It's more cost efficient than any portable irrigation system on the market," says Doug Bryan, Rhome, Texas, about the portable irrigation system he built that can be pulled around by any utility vehicle. Bryan has a cow-calf operation and uses the system to irrigate his 30-acre pasture. He designed the irrigation system in order to recycle the water he uses in his catfish and shrimp farming operation. The system consists of nine caster-wheeled steel towers spaced about 40 ft. apart. Each tower is equipped with a nozzle on top that's about 4 ft. off the ground. The towers carry a 4-in. dia., heavy duty poly pipe via metal braces clamped onto the pipe. A small pipe runs vertically from the poly pipe up to each nozzle. A length of "fire hose" flat pipe is connected to one end of the poly pipe. The other end of the flat pipe hooks up to any one of a series of spigots lined up at one end of the field and spaced 135 ft. apart. Water is piped underground to the spigots via a submersible pump in a small lake. (pumps 300 gal. 9 sprinklers built so only using 90 gal. so wouldn't take near that big a pump to run it. To move the towers to a new location, Bryan turns off the pump and unhooks the flat hose from the poly pipe, then chains one of the end towers to his ATV and moves the system. Then he hooks the flat hose up to a new spigot. "I looked at commercial pod-type systems before building my own system. I like my system better because it's less expensive and because it uses a much bigger pipe which produces more volume," he says. "Pod-type systems use only a 1 1/2-in. dia. hose. My system delivers much more water at greater pressure and will cover an area four times larger in the same time." He built the towers himself out of 2 by 3-in. rectangular tubing. The towers ride on wheelbarrow wheels, which he converted to swivel so that they'll pull in any direction. He bought the poly pipe from a local supplier. He says his total cost was less than $4,000. He went into the shrimp farming business two years ago and raises the shrimp in three 1-acre ponds. That's why he got the idea for the system. "I have to drain the ponds to harvest the shrimp. I had been draining the water into a small lake where I raise catfish, but the lake isn't big enough to contain all the water. I didn't want to waste the water by diverting the excess water into a creek, especially because we're in a severe drought. Another benefit is that shrimp water has a lot of feed and fertilizer in it which is good for the grass," he notes. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Doug Bryan, 820 County Road 4430, Rhome, Texas 76078 (ph 940 627-6376 ; cell 940 393-6653; whipper2004@earthlink.net).

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