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 Smart controls like Irritrol’s Climate Logic are trending. Keith Shepersky, senior product marketing manager, says, one day, each household could have a controller for water efficiency. Photo: Rain Bird. As a new year begins, there’s a lot on the horizon in terms of emerging irrigation technologies and products. What’s driving most of the trends is both concern for the environment and stricter water regulations, but ultimately it’s also cost.
“Water prices are increasing,” says Jennifer Riley-Chetwynd, spokesperson for Rain Bird. “If people have the opportunity to choose between a water efficient product and one that’s not, they’re going to choose the most efficient one.”
Lawn & Landscape has rounded up some of the key emerging irrigation technologies that contractors can expect in the near future.
Smart Control
On a macro level, smart control and weather-based control devices will continue to be of growing interest. “Of course these are not brand new things, but what is going to happen in the near future is that these technologies will become more accessible to everyone as the cost and ease-of-use comes down,” says Riley-Chetwynd. “That includes everything from controllers to moisture sensors to rain and freeze sensors.”
In terms of this technology, Rain Bird’s ESP-SMT Smart Control System offers instant rainfall shut-off and useable measurement features. During rainfall, it not only suspends irrigation but measures rainfall amounts and calculates how much to adjust the watering schedules to prevent either over- or under-watering.
In 2011, Hunter Industries will continue to expand its product offering in smart control technology as well. “We have expanded this technology so that every controller in our product offering from our small residential controller, the X-Core Controller, to our large commercial controller, the ACC, now all have integrated smart control capability with our Solar Sync product,” says Jeff Kremicki, product marketing manager.
“This makes it easy for customers to upgrade their control systems so that they can water efficiently and automatically adjust for changing weather conditions. Solar Sync uses a small, on-site weather sensor that gathers weather data and sends them to the controller, which then uses that information to calculate a new watering schedule daily.”
Kremicki says that Hunter will also be introducing a wireless version of Solar Sync that will make it easier for customers to upgrade their Hunter controllers for a smart controller. “The Wireless Solar Sync will also save contractors time and money due to the ease of installation of this wireless sensor.”
In addition, Kremicki also says a tremendous interest has been shown in two-wire control technology, which he says provides contractors with maximum flexibility from an installation and troubleshooting standpoint. Customers are now requesting a smaller version of two-wire control systems. “As a result, we are introducing the DUAL two-wire system for our new I-CORE controller,” he says. “By inserting a plug-in decoder module in the I-CORE controller, the customer can convert a conventional I-CORE controller to a two-wire system capable of operating up to 48-stations. Although the DUAL decoder system is designed for smaller irrigation applications, it offers the advanced capabilities of the I-CORE controller – remote control, Solar Sync weather based control, system diagnostics and wireless decoder programming to name a few – and does it at a very affordable price. This will result in many more opportunities for contractors to benefit from two-wire technology.”
Mobile Control
Going a step further, Mark Puckett, product development manager of ET Water Systems says that as the smart control trend becomes more accessible, what he expects to see is a departure from the hardware model and more of a focus on monitoring and management. For ET Water Systems, that means the introduction of a new mobile product that will give customers the ability to manage irrigation systems from the control of their smart phone.
The company that focused on offering customers interface opportunities through a website will now allow users to have that same control from their own phone, giving them true mobility.
“You’ll be able to get flow rates, information on how many gallons a site is using or whatever else you need to know,” says Puckett. “This responds to a need for the customer to be able to control and manage their controllers and sites from anywhere.”
Puckett says these new capabilities are ideal for contractors on who spend their day in trucks and at job sites.
In making technology more accessible, Puckett also sees the company’s retrofitting option as an emerging trend. “It used to be that if you wanted our product, you had to rip out your old controller to install it,” he says. “Now, because we really want to give the customer access to this technology, we’re coming out with the ability to retrofit existing controllers.”
Spray Nozzles
The big thing that Toro will be doing in the new year is adding to their line of Precision Series Spray Nozzles. “We have had great success with these spray nozzles, which install the same as traditional nozzles but use up to 30 percent less water to achieve the same irrigation efficiency,” says Jeff Miller, product manager. “New for 2011 is the next step up in that technology – rotating nozzles. The product will put water down more slowly and evenly because we built them with the miniaturized gear drive similar to those on our golf sprinklers.”
Miller says that the gear drive allows the nozzle to have a wider operating pressure range. The rotation speed also stays the same. “That’s a big benefit because it makes the performance equal,” he says. “You don’t have to use a pressure regulated spray head to get the same performance anymore.”
From Rain Bird, the SQ Nozzle puts water out in a square pattern that is perfect for medians or small strips of land, says Riley-Chetwynd. That also helps eliminate overspray of areas that would be inevitable with a circular pattern. In addition, it offers the benefits of pressure compensation to increase efficiency and control, and has a short-throw (less than 4 feet). All of these contribute to water efficiency – saving up to 65 percent, Riley-Chetwynd says.
Drip and Low Volume Irrigation
As a trend, Riley-Chetwynd also sees the proliferation of drip and low volume irrigation in the market. Rain Bird has come out with subsurface drip for turf applications – the Rain Bird XF-SDI Dripline with Copper Shield. “In the past, there have been some limitations to this technology because of root intrusion,” Riley-Chetwynd says. “With our product, we’ve overcome those obstacles with a non-chemical solution (the copper shield). In the past, chemicals had to be used and that’s not something everyone is comfortable with, or can have limitations from the EPA.”
The author is a frequent contributor to Lawn & Landscape.
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