Note: Descriptions are shown in the official language in which they were submitted.
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The invention rela-tes to a water feediny head for drop feed
irrigation of row crops, e.g. vineyards and orchards. The water
Eeeding head is connected with a water pipeline that is part of an
estahlished or at least -temporary water distribution system
supplied from some kind of water source, and is provided with an
attachment to the pipeline and a water discharge orifice.
Drop feed irrigation systems started to gain general accept-
ance all over the world at the end of the 1960's and beginning of
the 1970's. It differs from the previously used irrigation methods
in that the quantity of irrigation water necessary in each irriga-
tion season is delivered at a continuous rate, or at least at short
intervals, instead of on the four-five occasions, or at the 3-4
weekly intervals as was cutomary in Hungary.
Its most important domestic field of application is in the
irrigation of vineyards and orchards. In this application, for
example a polyethylene hose of small diameter is fastened to the
lower metal rope of the wall-tree of a vineyard or orchard (in
the absence of a wall-tree it is fastened for instance onto a row
of poles, etc.), and the drop feed heads are screwed into this
pipe usually at a spacing of 2-4 m. The diameter of each head is
normally 0.2-0.6 mm and the water at low pressure in the hose is
delivered by dripping onto the soil. The water permeates the soil,
thus it wets the root system of the plants, or - in the case of
faults in the system - only part of it.
The most importantadvanta~es to be derived from large-scale
drop feed irrigation are the following: water content of the soil
can be regulated very well~ the optimal water content le~el is
almost continually ensured,. the irrigation itself does not require
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manual labour after laying o~ the pipes; the process of irrigation
can be relatively easily automated. (By keeping the waker supply
at optimal level, 200-300 q/ha additional yield of apples has been
achieved in Hungary).
Some oE the disadvantages are: the small diameter drop
feed heads are easily cloyged, a disadvantage in large-scale
farming where several hundred thousands or millions of heads are
operating~ that may make such large-scale application questionable;
the drop feed heads spaced at a distance of several meters in the
line are not capable of wetting the entire growing area of the fruit
trees, not even in case of impermeable ground and as a result the
root systems of the trees become distorted (they develop vigorously
in the irrigated parts, while they lag behind in dry areas);
insertion of the heads onto the pipe is not mechanized, which is
a major disadvantage when irrigation is to be carried out on a
large scale.
Spray heads are fre~uently used - mainly in Austria and
the USA, where either a single water jet emerges from the spray
nozzle and by hitting a plate in front of it, is sprayed, or
fog-like fine spray emerges through 8-10 tiny - a few tenths of a
mm diameter - holes. The spray heads are used for freshening the
foliage of Citrus plants. With the fog-like spray the microclimate
; of the foliage is improved. These apparatuses are not suitable for
the irrigation of a strip of land area and for delivery of
irrigation water to the root system of the plants. Furthermore,
no rain-type irrigation is realizable, which through the uniform
permeation of the soil would provide an appropriate water supply
~ for the fruit trees indigenous to Europe. The reason for this is
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that the irrigation water is not controllable, it does not permit
in-termittent operation, and in adclition the layiny and relaying
of -the system requires substantially manpower.
A particular type of apparatus functioning according ko the
above principle is provided with a water feeding head ~uitable for
the irrigation of circular areas. It has approximately 15 small
diameter (about 0.7 mm) holes. The heads discharging the sprayed
water are placed in the crowns of the trees. The diameter of the
irrigated area is about 0.5 m. The disadvantages of the device
are that owing to the spraying method the evaporation loss is
high, and there is no possibility to increase the size of the
irrigated area.
Another known solution for water feeding heads operating
with an impacted water jet uses a hole of 0.3 to 0.6 mm for
discharge of the water. The emerging jet hits a plate in front
of it, gets sprayed, then falls by gravitation. According to
experience, even this water feeding head is suitable only for the
irrigation of the foliage, or crowns of the trees, but is
unsuitable for the e~ficient water supply to the soil.
Water discharge nozzles also exist which imitate the
so-called spray heads. They are reduced size versions of a pipe
and nozzle of the sprinkler type spray head. The outlet diameter
is about 0.3 to 0.4 mm. The nozzle-end opposite to the outlet
orifice is provided with a thread which can be screwed for instance
into the cross pipe inserted in the irrigation system. With the
aid of the nozzles the spray is trained on the stalks or stems
of the row crops, e.g. vines. The results are not favcurable. As
a result of sunshine the pipeline suffers deformation, consequently
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the position of khe nozzle will be altered. In addition, owing to
the very large number of nozzles the assembly and operation are
labour-intensive.
The so-called feeder spirals are found amon~ the relatively
more advanced water feeders, one end of which is pushed into the
hole in the wall of the cross pipe of the pipe system, then the
spiral is wound onto the pipe. The spiral is provided with internal
hole of 0.4 to 0.6 mm diameter. A drawback of the system is that
the diameter of the hole cannot be increased unless the length of
the spiral (being 1.0 to 1.5 m at the present) is increased
considerably. Because of the small diameter of the hole it is
necessary to purify the irrigation water to the quali-ty of drinking
water, which is rather expensive. It is also unfavourable that no
fertilizer can be delivered to the soil with the water feeding
spiral.
Amongst the most advanced varieties of the water feeding
heads are those which deliver the moisture to the soil by way of
dripping. A characteris*ic type of these is described in the French
Patent Specification No. 2,185,349. Discharge of the water is
carried out by large-headed nails pressed into the so-called cross
pipe provided with gaps and/or holes of various shapes and sizes.
The large-headed nails may be provided with some kind of cap that
prevents passage of the water directly in a jet form. This system
has failed in practice, because the geometrically complicated
design of the heads makes them sensitive to clogging.
Similarly drop feed type irrigation apparatus can be found
in the French Patent Specification No. 2,268,460. So-called water
feeding bodies are inserted into the cross pipe of the water supply
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system and Eixed with clamps to -the pi.pe. The body may be provided
with various replaceable heads, which discharge the water through
; the orifices developed along the mantle surface. Design of the
heads is complicated. The heads are sensitive to clogging. They
are material-intensive and their p:roduction is difficult, hence
unsuitable for large-scale purposes.
The drop feed type spray h~3ad described in the French
Patent Specification No. 2,201,719 is formed as a drop feed body
and can be inserted not only in radial but also in axial direction
into the pipe so that the water is conductible right through the
head. The water is delivered in small drops to the soil. The
construction of this head is complicated, its production is
expensive and the very narrow gaps are inclined to clog quickly.
The drop feed type feeding head described in the French
Patent Specification No. 2,229,347 is also mountable in the
pipeline as a pipe connecting adapter. One end of the pipe connect-
ing adapter is provided with a flat thread and it discharges a
water quantity according to the geometrical parameters - shape,
depth, number - of this thread. The disadvantages are the same as
in those heads mentioned earlier.
; Finally it is worth mentioning the drop feed body which can
be inserted into low pressure water supply systems and is used for
ploughland irrigation. This is described in the French Patent
Specification No. 2,173,616. The drop feed body i~ provided with
a thread and the water quantity is regulated by screwing a
threaded pin in and out. sy screwing the threaded pin fully in,
the water feed is cut off. The emerging water flows in the
~ grooves of the threaded part and passes to the outlet orifice.
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The system is ingenious, but extremely complicated, and the
irrigation conditions are not more favourable than with the
branching pipes provided with clamps. It is too expensive for
the small-scale farm, on the other hand in the large-scale farms -
owing to the constantly necessary adjustment of the threads and
high demand for the labour force - its use is impractical.
The pipelines to be found in the French Patent Specification
No. 2,213,731 are accessories of irrigation plants. From the
description and drawings it appears that the liquid is forced to
pass along a spiral thread and its flow conditions and the rate of
flow are determined by the pitch. The water feeding orifices are
arranged in the external mantle surface of the pipe, through which
more or less drop feed-type water discharge is to be achieved.
This water feed is not realized. The water passes from the
internal so-called water delivery pipe into the external irrigation
pipe, but it travels only a short distance in the space be~ween the
two pipe mantles and even that under unfavourable and practically
uncontrollable flow conditions.
The French Patent Specification No. 2,216,90~ demonstrates
an irrigation device permitting quantitative control. The vital
part of the device is the adjustable threaded drop feed head
placeable into the pipe. The water flows in the grooves of the
sleeved drop feed thread. A thread regulating the quantity of the
outflowing water may be developed in the interior of the pipe. The
drop feed head can be fixed in the pipe in a horizontal arrangement
too. This system is also extremely complicated, hence its
production is costly and maintenance difficult. For this reason
it gained no general use in the practice.
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The invention is aimed at the development of a water
feeding head ~Jith the aid of which row crops, for example orchards
can be supplied with water, and not only on the customary seasonal
4-5 occasions (i.e. at intervals of several weeks), but at a
continuous rate during the growth season.
The present invention is based on the recognition that
drop feed irrigation should be realized with holes of large
diameter instead of the spray heads c~f 0.2 to 0.6 mm hole diameter
used so far, whereby a multiple of the earlier water quantity can
be delivered to the ground. It is pertinent to the recognition
that one or several water streams should emerge at low pressure
from the water feeding head of small size but with relatively
large hole diameter, and each of these water streams should reach
the ground at a particular spot. Density of the irrigated spots
is determined with the types and spacing of the heads in such a way,
that an irrigated strip of approximately uniform width should
develop on the ground surrounding the row crop from both sides.
According to the present invention there is provided a
drop-feed irrigation system for row crop watering comprising:
at least one pipeline spaced above the ground to be watered and
for delivering water at a pressure of no more than 0.75 m water
column and provided with a plurality of tubular bodies spaced along
said pipeline and extending downwardly therefrom, each of said
tubular bodies having a tapering configuration; and respective
one-piece nozzles interchangeably mounted on said tubular bodies,
each of said nozzles being formed with a cylindrical portion having
a bore open at one end for receiving said respective tubular body
and communicating therethrough with said pipeline, said nozzle
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being further formed with a plurality of orifices, each having a
diameter grea-ter than 0.6 mm and formed at the other end of said
nozzle and communicating with said bore, at least two of said
orifices being directed laterally ancl substantially radially with
respect to the axis of said nozzle, said orifices being axially
spaced from the lower end of the respective -tubular body, said
orifices of said nozzle being so oriented and said tubular bodies
being so positioned along said pipeline that water carried therein
is discharged therefrom in a trickling stream onto said ground at
a continuous network of watering points along said pipeline.
Preferably, each .nozzle is formed with a frustoconical
portion at its other end, and the orifices form angles other than
90 with the axis of the nozzle.
The main advantage of the irrigation system according to
the invention is that it meets the requirements for drop feed
irrigation of loose soils. This drop feed irrigation is achieved
with the aid of a pipeline and a large number of wate~ feeding
heads connected to the pipeline. Its technical advantage is that
each head is formed by a tubular body and a nozzle which are
separable. The body is identical in every case, and consequently
its production and insertion into the pipeline can be accomplished
with high productivity and efficient mechanization. The bodies of
identical construction allow the connection of various nozzles with
maximum adaptation to the need and with precision replacement.
Experience with irrigation systems according to the
invention has been definitely favourable so far. In the case of
individual plants, e.g. fruit trees, irrigation at one or two
points is replaced with the supply of water to the whole strip
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where the root system of the plants is si-tuated.
It i5 also favourable tha-t the wa-ter can be directed to
the require~ spot with the water eeding head, and -the size of the
nozzles and spacing of the heads along the pipelines make it
possible that the so-called total permeation in the required strip
of the ground should take place with a margin of safet~, and thus
the optimal water content will be available for the soil with
respect to the plant in question. This is facilitated also by the
irrigation being suitably intermittent and programmable.
The system according to the invention provides a solution
to the internationally recognized problem of efficient irrigation
of orchards in loose, sandy soil with small water portions at low
pressure. The system retains all the known advantages of drop
feed irrigation and at the same time it eliminates all the
disadvantages so far inhibiting large-scale application. In reality
only the elements and principles of the drop feed irrigation have
been retained, thus the nozzles mounted on the pipeline, the low
operating pressure and the lateral seepage in the soil. Con-
sequently the subject of this invention can be no longer regarded
as a drop feed head, but rather as a water feeding head.
In the accompanying drawings, which illustrate exemplary
emobdiments of the present invention:
Figure 1 illustrates the connection of pipeline and water
feeding head;
Figures 2 to 5, are longitudinal sections of various
embodiments of the nozzles,
Figures 6 to 13, are cross sections of various embodiments
of the nozzlesL ancl
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Figures 14 to 18 are schema-tic plan views showing the
irrigated strip of the ground with nozzles provided with various
orifices.
Figure 1 shows the pipeline 1 with one water feeding head
assembled from the tubular body 2 and the nozzle 3. The tubular
body 2 is radially inser-ted into the pipeline 1, preferably secured
with a screw nut, with the longitudinal axis 7 of the nozzle 3
perpendicular to the longitudinal axis 9 of the pipeline 1.
Figure 2 shows an embodiment of nozzle 3 which is provided
with a single axial orifice 4 on the longitudinal axis 7. The
mantle surface 8 of the nozzle 3 is a straight cylinder as .in the
embodiment illustrated in Figure 3. The interior 6 of the nozzle
3 is similarly cylindrical in both cases. In the embodiment
according to Figure 3 the irrigation water passes from the
interior 6 through the radial orifices 5. Their axes are at an
angle of ~0 to the longitudinal axis 7 of the nozzle 3.
In Figures 4 and 5, the mantle surface 8 of the nozzle is
shaped with a frustoconical portion at the lower end of the
cylindrical part. In Figure 4 the frustoconical portion is of
downwardly increasing diameter in relation to the mantle surface
8, while its diameter is decreasing in the embodiment shown in
Figure 5. In both cases the nozzle 3 is provided with the radial
orifices 5 arranged on the frustoconical portion of the nozzle 3.
Figure 4 shows that axes o~ the radial orifices 5 are at an obtuse
angle to the longitudinal axis 7 of the nozzle 3, while they are
at an acute angle in Figure 5. Figures 2 to 5 show that ~he
interior 6 of the nozzle 3 ends in a concave conical surface at
its end opposite the connection to the body 2.
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Figures 6 to 13 ill~ls-trate cross sections of various
embodlments of the nozzle in a plane perpendicular to the
longitudinal axis 7 of the nozzle. Figures 6 and 7 show two
radial orifices 5 and these are combined with an axial orifice 4
in Figure 7. Figure 8 shows four raclial orifices 5 at 90C ko
each other, while in the nozzle cross section shown in Figure 9,
four radial orifices are spaced around the outer surface 8 of the
nozzle 3 in such a way that the adjacent radial orifices 5 are
at alternating acute and obtuse angles to each other.
Figure 10, like Figure 8, illustrates four radial orifices
5 at a central angle of 90 to each other, but the nozzle 3 is
provided with the axial orifice 4 as well. The nozzle cross
section in Figure 11 can be regarded as a version oE that shown in
Figure 9, where the radial orifices 5 are similarly associated
with an axial orifice 4.
In Figure 12 the nozzle 3 has five radial orifices 5, while
in Figure 13 besides the same spacing of the radial orifices 5, one
axial orifice 4 is also available.
Figures 6 to 13 demonstrate that the water emerges in two,
three, four, five or six streams from each water feeding head in
accordance with the number of orifices. According to agrotechnical
experience, those embodiments of the nozzle 3 seem to be preferable
where no vertical water stream is discharged from the water feeding
head. If the applied pressure does not exceed 0.75 m water column
pressure, then the water passes out of the water feeding head not
in the form of a jet, but by drop feed, providing a trickling
stream. At such low pressures, the moisture reaching the soil in
a vertical direction has a favourable effect.
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The exper:iments conduc-ted with drop feed and with discharge
of water s-treams :in various direc-tions and intensities demonstrate
that drop feeding to a particular spot is not favourable, because
the mineral substances washecl out of the soil at khe edge of the
wetted strip of ground ma~ produce permanent salt deposits. On
the other hand, at the water stream discharging heads the width of
the irrigated strip 11 can be varied within wide limits by
variation of the pressure and the sa:Lt deposits can be reduced, and
the still occurring minor salt deposits can be easily washed away
through the so-called accumulated irriyation accomplished at the
end of the growth season.
Figures 14 to 18 show the irrigation strip 11 and the
network points 10 constituting a continuous system, which shows
where the water s-treams from the water feeding heads reach the
ground. Figure 14 shows the pattern when the water feeding head
is equipped with the double orifice nozzle 3 illustrated in Figure
6. The irrigated strip ll shown in Figure 15 is pertinent to the
nozzle cross section shown in Figure 7. In this latter pattern it
is apparent that now and then a network point 10 falls in the
traceline of pipeline l.
Figure 16 illustrates the case when the four network points
10 are situated along the corner points of an imaginary square.
This irrigation pattern is pertinent to the nozzle cross section
shown in Figure 8. There is no separate diagram, but naturally it
is easily conceivable that the imaginary square of Figure 13 is
distorted to a rectangular shape if the nozzle 3 is of the cross
section shown in Figure 9. Similarly, the irrigation pattern is
complemented when the network point 10 falls in the traceline of
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the main pipeline 1 when the nozzle 3 is constructed as shown in
Figures 10 or 11.
Figure 17 illustrates the irrigated strip 11 that is
pertinent to the nozzle cross section shown in Figure 12. In the
interest of lucidi-ty, the network polnts 10 brought about by two
consecutive water feeding heads were marked in the illustration
which shows that the water feeding heads are spaced along the
pipeline 1 in such a way that the irrigated strip is reached by the
water jets in a "set pattern".
Figure 18 similarly shows the irrigation pattern pertinent
to the nozzle cross section according to Figure 13. The water
streams reach the ground in both of the latter cases in network
points 10, and seepage of the moisture starts ou-t from these
points. The water delivery pipeline 1 passes preferably in the
approximate line of the row crops, e.g. fruit trees, and thus the
strip crossed by the root system can be supplied with moisture at
an approximately uniform rate.
The water feeding heads of the present system are suitable
for the realization of controlled irrigation, especially in the
case of loose soils and mainly for row crops, at a lower cost and
more effectively than with the systems existing until now.
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