Water, water everywhere — well, only where it’s supposed to be. That’s the primary drive behind drip irrigation as it puts the water precisely to the plant without any water waste or overspray.
Mike Merlesena, a national sales manager with DIG Corporation, says he doesn’t see this slowing down anytime soon.
“Drip will continue to grow as water issues continue to become a problem not only out west but anywhere and everywhere,” he says. “Only 3% of the water on the planet is fresh and drinkable so conservation will continue to be cut and pasted all over.”
Slow but steady advancements
While drip irrigation is becoming increasingly more popular, most manufacturers report that there haven’t been many recent advancements in products or technology.
“People do keep coming up with new things in terms of drip irrigation, but most of them are concentrated around the agricultural industry,” says Gaurav Mathur, a senior product manager at Hunter Industries.
Craig Gaines, product manager of drip irrigation for Toro, who admits he’s only been in the drip irrigation space for a little over a year, has a background in plant biology and strawberry farming. He echoes that drip is fundamental in the agricultural industry and advancing faster.
“I’m new to the irrigation industry. I came from agriculture, where there it’s the standard,” he says. “You don’t think about using drip or not using drip. It’s fully the standard.”
However, Gaines adds Toro is doubling down on drip irrigation and expects to have something new to debut very soon.
“Toro is focused on moving the needle for drip,” he says. “And we have things that are coming that will decrease the energy that’s needed to apply drip irrigation — and increase the water savings. We’re really excited about that.”
Merlesena says DIG Corp. also has some advancements on the horizon.
“We’ll have a new controller coming out next year. It’s solar- and ambient-light powered. It’ll be a tremendous benefit to that as it doesn’t need direct sunlight and powered by super capacitors instead of batteries,” he notes. “Usually, you need a bulky solar panel, and you need some form of battery, a big pedestal and an enclosure… We’re going to have a standalone controller that’s no bigger than a parking meter to control 32 valves — it’ll be cloud-based and ET (evapotranspiration) capable.”
Despite innovations in drip irrigation not debuting all the time, Adam Edgar, an assistant category manager with SiteOne Landscape Supply, says it’s the existing technology behind drip that has made it so impactful.
“All of these things have been in the market a number of years, some longer than others. In coordination, they all work toward that same goal,” he says.
Edgar calls out the importance of flow sensors and soil sensors along with rain and snow sensors. Additionally, he adds things like pressure regulation and evapotranspiration are paramount to drip’s success.
“Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen a lot of enactments of pressure regulation policies. We’ve seen it in New York, California, Nevada. That provides consistent, safe pressurization through your irrigation system and creates a steady flow for optimal performance and resists damage to pipes. Preventing additional maintenance is less work and less stress on your landscape,” Edgar says.
In terms of evapotranspiration, Edgar says more manufacturers are embracing this in their drip technology.
“They recognize its importance. It indicates how much water is needed because it measures the transfer of water from the surface to the atmosphere,” he says. “It allows you to optimize watering schedules. It’s going to allow you to put the right amount of water at the right place. Because ET is different for trees, plants, bushes, vegetables, fruits — it’s a very important piece of knowledge to have.”
Edgar also sings the praises of root watering systems and UV-resistant tubing, which prevents the tubing from breaking down due to the elements over a longer period of time.
Passing the torch of knowledge
The pairing of smart controllers is another element of drip irrigation that Edgar says takes things to the next level.
“I love having things controlled by Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. It’s simple — I don’t even have to go outside. I can set the schedule and confirm what zones are watering. There are all kinds of things to track and keep an eye on,” he says.
But when it comes to contractors handing the reins over to the homeowners, or property managers in commercial cases, there is a call for concern.
“The industry makes the puppet, and the end user is then the puppeteer,” Merlesena says. “A smart controller is only as smart as the person working it.
“I’ve talked to dozens of municipalities over the years and most of them don’t even use the weather-based features of the controllers,” he adds, pointing out that most commercial clients enjoy the smart controllers as a labor savings rather than deep diving into the data.
Edgar says contractors have to strike a balancing act when providing drip irrigation.
“I think of it as a two-way street,” he says. “A contractor has to understand that there may be an enterprising person who wants to learn and wants to be more involved, but there’s also going to be a significant amount of people who still want to ‘set it and forget it’ and not have to worry about it. I think a contractor will live in both worlds.”
That’s where education comes into play, and Edgar says he’s happy to see more suppliers focusing on education at the end-user level instead of exclusively for contractors.
“Some suppliers have just revamped their training programs. Not just for distributors but for consumers as well,” he says. “They’ve created these robust portals of information. Traditionally, a lot of this knowledge was reserved for the contractor. It was seen as tribal knowledge they had. But that’s not the case anymore. Creating this accessibility to information is going to change the dynamic of the irrigation market. Drip being that next level of evolution for irrigation systems.”
For Gaines, just making the switch to drip irrigation is progress enough but combining that with a smart controller and a desire to be more conscious is the best-case scenario.
“If you install a smart controller and drip, and you’re only using it at the base functionality, the water savings is still going to be tremendous. The lion’s share of savings will come just by installing it,” he says. “I can’t see anything that’s more efficient than precisely dosed irrigation delivered directly to the root zone. On top of that, if there is consideration taken for the weather and the environment — the situation is going to be near perfect.”
A decree for drip
As water conservation continues to be a sticking point within the green industry, most experts see drip as the way of the future in terms of irrigation.
“Irrigation is going to have to find a balance between increased regulations and the challenges the environment will impose,” Edgar says. “I think that manufacturers and suppliers are going to have to be more responsive to those changes and willing to accept that this is the evolution.”
In terms of regulations, municipalities and states out in the western U.S. are already calling for, and in some instances establishing, mandates that restrict water use and call explicitly for drip irrigation in new installation homes.
Merlesena points to Nevada as one state that’s cracking down hard on water waste.
“In Las Vegas, you can’t put down non-usable sod or grass anymore,” Merlesena says. “That makes sense… the western U.S. is a desert. States should be cracking down way more and having rules and regulations on this. Grass has no place in the desert.”
Gaines looks to California, where there are already mandates in place to cut water waste and move toward drip irrigation. He adds that by 2040, the state is expected to be delivering 40% less water to consumers.
“It’s like electric cars in the carpool lane,” Gaines says. “Maybe there are some exceptions like that for drip, but I don’t know if California will explicitly call out drip. They might.”
Gaines adds that Maryland has similar regulations, where all irrigation and landscape irrigation is prohibited except for drip under Level 1 restrictions.
“It’s not surprising at all,” he says of drip moving east. “With population growth, water resources are not increasing, they might even be decreasing, but the population is definitely increasing, so we’re going to have to conserve more water.”
In addition to directives calling for drip irrigation specifically, Mathur says there’s been plenty of restrictions lately concerning overhead sprayers.
“Regulated sprays are up and coming pretty well,” he says. “In the same markets where drip is coming up, they are also mandating that the sprays be pressure regulated as well.”
Mathur estimates there are about 11 to 14 states currently with pressure-regulated mandates — with more soon to follow.
“Mandates will continue as the water scarcity becomes more of an issue,” Mathur says. “States like Texas and Florida, Colorado, New York — they will mandate that here is a certain percentage of drip line.”
Gaines says he too suspects that drip irrigation’s popularity will move east across the country.
“The best practices are being established in the Sun Belt states, but as other states start to find themselves on the fringes of drought, they’ll start to adopt the same water saving technology that we use here,” he says.
On the other side of the globe, Mathur notes that drip is already the preferred irrigation form.
“If you go overseas to the Middle East, they are already heavily on drip lines,” he says. “So, it’s always going to be popular where there is a water scarcity. They will do whatever it takes to keep the water consumption down.”
Explore the February 2025 Issue
Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.
