The Three Rs of Irrigation

Chris Beytes

The experts at CleanwateR3.org are always promoting their research “reduce, remediate and recycle”—that’s what the “R3” indicates. Their Grower Tools Page that you can access for free has a raft of irrigation-based calculators, such as:

• Reservoir Calculator Tool

• Irrigation Volume Tool

• Interception Efficiency Tool (how much of your overhead irrigation hits the pots and how much falls between the pots?)

• Coefficient of Uniformity Tool (is your irrigation being applied uniformly across a given block?)

• Leaching Fraction Tool (how long you should run your irrigation to leach out accumulated salts)

• Parts per Million Calculators (for mixing fertilizers and sanitation chemicals)

• Alkcalc (estimates how much acid to add to neutralize alkalinity) GT