What does it take to get drip tape to last for over 20 years? A lot of TLC, according to Brian King, farm manger of Fagerberg Produce.
The northeastern Colorado operation mostly grows a variety of onions as a direct-to-retail crop. King says the company was one of the first in Colorado and the nation to install permanent subsurface irrigation. It has roughly 1,000 acres under drip tape today, with one line running down the center of 28-inch beds at 8.5 inches deep for its onions. It uses majority ¾-inch tape with emitters at 12-inch intervals with some runs as long as 1,700 feet.
King estimates that the farm is about 80% of the way through replacing its original drip tape, some of which is 24 years old now. But the average lifespan is closer to 20 years, he says.
“I think the biggest key to our success is the care that we put into it and the attention to detail,” he says, adding that extensive filtration is the third rung on their overall strategy. Without those three elements, “you’re not going to be able to keep tape for 20 years.”
He says it’s not hard to do, but it is a lot of work — though it is work that pencils out for the farm.
King, who is originally from Texas, used to use single-use drip tape growing onion starts down near the Mexican border. He describes that tape as being half the cost of the tape Fagerberg uses, but since it gets replaced every year, the disposable drip tape gets “super expensive” fast. The permanent drip tape they take care of, on the other hand, is well worth the cost.
“For us, it’s a no-brainer because we’re keeping it in 20 years,” he says.
King walked The Packer through exactly what care, attention to detail and filtration looks like on the ground to get 20-plus years out of drip tape.
No. 3: Filtration (and lots of it)
King explains that Fagerberg does extensive filtration.
“We’re way overkill on our filtration,” he says. “Any drip company could come in here and tell you that we probably have three or four times the amount of filtration that we actually need.”
In practical terms, overkill means three identical filtration stations capable of handling about 4,000 gallons of water a minute, though they generally run 1,800 gallons to 2,000 gallons a minute. Well and ditch water runs through the filtration stations’ drums of specific-grit sand that gets changed every three years. The sand acts as a physical media filter.
“This is a huge pool filter is all it is,” King summarizes. “It’d be the same type of filtration that a pool would have in a house or in a backyard, but on steroids.”
No. 2: Attention to detail
Active filtering isn’t the only way Fagerberg pays close attention to what goes through its drip tape with an eye to its longevity. While the operation does “a ton of fertigation and chemigation through the drip,” King says he is exceptionally picky about what goes through the lines.
“Even a soluble powder that’s mixed in with water, I probably won’t put that through my tape because I don’t want to take the risk of clogging my emitters,” he says. “My true test on that is I’ll ask the salesman if they’re going to come out and shovel to dig holes when the emitter is clogged. And when they say no, I know it’s probably not safe to put it through my tape.”
When it comes to the safety of the tape — which is buried 8.5 inches compared to the usual 12 inches or more for permanent subsurface irrigation — tillage is a major challenge, King says.
“A disc is going to go 6 inches deep,” he says, adding that subsurface drip tape tends to rise over time. “So, the [tape] that’s 15-plus years old is going to end up rising an inch-plus. If we run a disc across it and we’re not diligent about setting the depth right, we’re going to start cutting tape.”
So, the team at Fagerberg is very diligent about depth and positioning accuracy when running anything in the fields with the drip tape.
“One-hundred percent of our passes are going to be with an RTK GPS guidance system,” King says. If an operator is going to be close to the tape, such as when undercutting the onions, they will need to check every two to three turns to ensure accuracy.
“The attention to detail is every time we go over with any implement, even though it’s not even close to the tape, we’re going to send a crew out there to make sure everything’s set perfect,” King says.
It’s a tedious process, he admits, but it is one the team has perfected. The tenure of the six full-time, year-round team members ranges from three to 33 years.
“We’ve got a great crew here,” King says.
No. 1: Care (aka maintenance)
The work it takes to keep the drip lines maintained and clean is also tedious but well worth it for Fagerberg. King explains that, at the beginning of every season, a crew of about four will go out to check for leaks along the lines. One to three days of checking for leaks is just part of the crop plan at Fagerberg.
A leak will show up on the surface as a very visible sink hole, but has the potential to wash away seeds or new starts if they aren’t established, which can be a very costly mistake, King says.
Leaks can come from a number of sources, including mice and worms that look for water sources in winter.
“The first year we had tape, we did not put a pesticide there in the wintertime when we winterized it and when we fired up in the spring, it was a disaster,” King says. Since then, the team at Fagerberg will pump the system out and run a pesticide through everything to keep the mice and worms from chewing holes in the tape.
However, taking care of the tape during the season plays potentially the biggest role in extending its lifespan, according to King.
“At the end of every irrigation cycle that we run, maybe for the last two hours, we’re putting sulfuric acid through it,” he says.
He explains that most operators with permanent drip tape will clean out the lines with acid once a year as part of winterization, but that he prefers to do it more often. The acid cleans out any moss or algae that could potentially build up in the tape or emitters.
“I think that may be the biggest key to our longevity,” King says. “We’re keeping that tape extremely clean throughout the growing season.”
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