Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss Hauling water to trees

Does anyone have any recommendations for making it easier to water lots of newly planted trees scattered around my land?

Our new place is on 25 acres of mostly open pasture, with a very few individual trees here and there. I'd like to get more trees established. I've already planted several around the house (but out of reasonable hose range) and I'd like to plant more, but I'm spending way too much time and effort watering what I already have.

I'm currently filling two 5-gallon buckets at the house, then carrying them to each tree to dump out. I'm giving each tree 10 gallons once per week during out hot dry summer months. With 9 new trees to water scattered around our house this is quite a job! Once my pond goes in I'd really like to plant a lot of trees around it. The problem is that the pond site is a lot farther from my house than the trees that are giving me fits now!

I'm currently looking at the plastic 100-200 gallon water tanks that fit in the bed of a pickup truck. They look perfect, but I'm wondering how much water pressure I'll get when I attach a hose to them. They work by gravity, with a hose attached to the bottom of the tank. I don't want to wait forever at each tree for enough water to drip out. Has anyone used these before? How fast does the water come out of the hose?

Any other suggestions for getting water to these trees more easily?

Put a 5 gallon bucket at each tree with a small hole drilled on the side near the bottom and point it at the tree. Fill the 5 gallon bucket from the truck tank as fast as you can and then go to the next one. I'd get a tank with a big hose so you can fill the buckets quick.

The buckets aren't aesthetically pleasing, but they won't be there forever.

For a quickie setup, you are on the right track.
I don't know how much the tanks cost that you are looking at, but you might/should be able to find the 275 gal totes that are second hand. I find 'em in the local want ads. They usually go for around $75 - $100 each and are about 48" cubical.
The outlet spout is 2" dia, so no pressure restrictions. On the back of a truck, you will not be waiting long for 5 gals to drain.
If you want to take it up a notch, install a 12v Shurflo water pump inline with a switch and a few fittings. Hook it up to your truck battery.

My one man water hauling system is a 55 gallon barrel with a 1 1/2" ball valve on a simple pipe nozzle. Placed on the bottom with the barrel setting horizontally, 5 gallons comes out really fast. Only the last 5 gallons or so is notably slow.

Perfect! Thanks guys. I'll start shopping around for a truck tank with at least a 1.5" outlet.

This should be the perfect solution because not only will it save my back, but it will give me another excuse to go drive the truck around the pond.

Couple of thoughts, first I dont know what kind of truck you have and if you have any experience hauling but 275 gal of water is 2200 lbs. Be sure your truck can handle that, then the water will splash around if you go to fast and cause more trouble.

What I would do is get a 35-50 gal plastic drum from the local fertilizer plant (thats where I get mine) then fill them with water and attach a small solar panel and pump system to each. My neighbor has done this with several tress on his creek property. He does not have to fill it up that much, and the trees were fine last time I checked.

I need to take a closer look at the set up but that is how it looks like he does it and he has them on about 8 trees and trust me its cost effective or this guy would be toating the water himself, not useing the lazy man set up.

Good point Jake. With my truck I guess the max I should look for is around 150 gallons. 100 would probably be plenty anyway.

It is a good point; fill it halfway

And then you'll have to decide,

Is it a tank half full....

...or a tank half empty.



I could apologize, but I'm not really sorry.

hi ack.

i'm on 12 acres. i hauled buckets around for a time. a short time. i have become a fan of drip systems. i got my stuff in bulk at a contractor/wholesale place and have had little problems w/ it in the ten years stuff has been in.

my 2c

I bought a used aproximately 300-gallon tank on a trailer. It was expensive for such a tank, but it is an old stainless steel Coca Cola fair pressure tank, so I think I won't lose money on it. I drag it around with a tractor, but a truck would work fine. My wife and I used it to start 1000 seedling pine trees during a drought about 20 years ago. It is slow with a hose, but if you water faster, the water runs off and does little good. We now get wood chips from tree services when they are in the area. They dump them on our place rather than drive further and pay a dump fee. The chips must be left for a year before multching if you don't want to plant unwanted weeds such as poison ivy (learned the hard way), but they really help conserve moisure. We now don't water but replant if we get a drought. Its easier.

Longer hoses?

Ack, I found 11 listings for water tanks on Craigslist a couple weeks ago. There are no doubt a lot more for sale in the Tulsa area. Use the search words "water tank" "water storage" "storage tank" for the most results. I found several in the $50 range.

I used to haul water for my trees as well,but its a real pain.This spring I buried irrigation tubing,About 1500 ft,and now it takes 5 minutes instead od 2 1/2 hours to water the trees.The irrigation stuff is pretty cheap too.

Thanks everyone. I bought a 210 gallon plastic truck bed water tank and used it for the first time yesterday. Using a variety of connectors and adapters I connected a shut off valve and a 1.5" hose to the 2" tank opening. It worked really well and fills a 5 gallon bucket FAST!

I'm going to experiment with connecting a standard garden hose to the tank. If this gives me enough water pressure I think a smaller hose will be easier to work with and allow me to have the on/off control on the business end of the hose.

All of this has gotten me thinking about using pond water to water the trees and erosion control grasses around my pond once I get it built. Has anyone set up any kind of a pump system to get a garden hose style pond water powered faucet near your pond?

Ack, using pond water to irrigate with is common here in the semi-arid parts of Texas. Golf courses use them extensively in order to leach out the soluble salts in the well water so their bent grass greens don't die. You can rig one up at your new pond and will need a floating hose with a fine mesh screen, an electric pump hooked to rigid PVC and a your typical underground irrigation system. Make sure the emitters are made for "dirty" water. Also "T" off the outflow side of the pump with a large size (like 2-3") hydrant for filling up stuff http://foryourshore.com/index.cfm?action=ViewDetails&ItemID=96&Category=32 Here is an example of the set-up. There are probably less expensive rigs, this is just to illustrate....du

Perfect. Thanks!

Ack,

I planted 25 white pines and 12 cypress trees around my pond this spring. I got tired of hauling buckets from the pond to water the trees. I went out and bought a 20 dollar 12v pump at harbor freight and built a small wood mounting deck that fits on the front front of my cub cadet tractor in the front bracket where tractor weights are supposed to be placed. The pump has battery clips. I have 1oo feet of hose that I leave in the pond. When I need to water, I just hook up the pump, prime it, and drive around to each tree. I don't even need to get off the tractor. The pump doesn't have as much flow as I would like, but it gets the job done. It just takes a little longer.