Over the last few days we have been installing the irrigation system in one of our olive groves, as you can see in the photos, with the help of the company Plásticos de La Mancha (based in Las Pedroñeras). As you can see, the irrigation system is a drip irrigation system, the main aim of which is to make the most efficient use of the water we are going to use.
As for the installation carried out, it consists of two main pipes that run to the middle of the plot, thereby creating two separate irrigation sections. From there, two dripper hoses run out to each of the rows of olive trees. The distance between the drippers is 1 metre. We’ll gradually remove the rubber bands from the trunk as the olive tree grows. The flow rate we need is around 20,000 litres per hour (we have a three-inch vertical pump that delivers around 40,000 litres per hour at full capacity), so we can water the whole plot at the same time. A filter and a cyclone have also been installed to remove the sand that comes out of the well, so that we don’t have any problems with the drippers.
In the future, the plan is to replace the diesel engine with solar panels and the vertical pump with a submersible one, in order to save on fuel. With the panels, we’ll have to water one section first and then another (and, of course, we won’t be able to water at night)... hence the way the installation has been planned.
Finally, it should be noted that olive groves do not require much water in summer as they are in a state of vegetative dormancy, just as they are in winter. If we were to water them heavily now, much of the water would go to the olives, which would become waterlogged and, as a result, we would get a poorer yield at harvest time. This is not the case for us, as the olive trees are not yet bearing fruit (they were planted three and two years ago). It is in autumn and spring that we will carry out more intensive watering. Until then, we’ll carry out some supplementary watering, as the plants are under significant water stress and, as these are young olive trees, this will be of much greater benefit to them than it would be for olive trees already in production.
