One benefit of working in irrigation are the fascinating schemes that we get involved in.
One such scheme was in Bristol, where the docks had been dredged for seeds amongst the discarded ballast from sailing ships that had used the docks 300 years ago. The seeds have been germinated and, with help from Bristol University’s Botanic Garden, identified. The diverse range of plants includes: Nigella Damascene from Southern Europe, Camelina Sative from Northern Europe and Central Asia and Gilla Capitata from North America.
The seeds have been planted on a disused grain barge, moored in Bristol’s Floating Harbour.
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The irrigation system consisted of drip irrigation line laid out over the beds on the barge with a timer to bring the watering on automatically. Drip line used pressure compensated drippers to ensure the output of each nozzle is uniform over the whole area.
The dripline was laid out over the beds in a grid, with dripper pipes 0.5m apart, ensuring all areas could be watered automatically.
