# Fertigation



## aliva (Jul 5, 2020)

Not really a machining project. But I thought some might be interested. 
I have an underground sprinkler system for my lawn. And be as lazy as I am I wanted to be able to fertilize the lawn when I water.
I found a company in California EZ-Flo that sell a system that injects fertilizer into the lawn sprinkler stream. Exactly what I need. Problem being that it costs money and I'm cheap. I figured that I should be able to mimic their system. I recently removed a ozone purifier system from my mother in-laws home. I saved the holding tank.
I opened the tank removed the bladder, made a new cover from 316 SS, installed the water in line ,and the ejector line out. The water in line is on the left the solution line out to the sprinklers is on the right.\( semi transparent) I had to purchase from EZ-Flo the inline fitting, that's in white. I wasn't sure how the injector worked so I just bought one. After receiving it it's pretty simple, just a reduced orifice. The moment of truth, I filled the tank with water and red food coloring. Fired up the system, and to my surprise I got red colored water flowing out of the tank and into the sprinkler system. Now its just a matter of calculating my GPM for each zone and then adjust the needle valve to give me the appropriate dosage.


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## Ed ke6bnl (Jul 5, 2020)

I had a boiler chemical injection pump to do the same. Need a back flow protector. Then used the pump for adding cutting oil to the lathe when power was on


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## Reddinr (Jul 5, 2020)

+1 on back flow protector.


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## Nutfarmer (Jul 5, 2020)

You may want to think about a filter between the tank and the injector . Just make sure that the filter will remove any thing bigger than the sprinkler will pass .


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## tq60 (Jul 5, 2020)

We built a system with a whole house filter.

For drip system you have a low pressure regulator.

Connect the filter across the regulator And use an emitter on the input to to the filter.

Add chemical in the filter and the pressure differential causes flow through filter controlled by emitter.

There are other devices that go in the line and use line flow to pump in chemical.

Or a piston pump...

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## aliva (Jul 6, 2020)

I have check valve on order for the mainline, that will get installed later. The pickup tube to the sprinkler stream has a small SS screen installed so I'm not worried about debris entering the sprinkler heads


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## jlesser27 (Jul 6, 2020)

aliva said:


> I have check valve on order for the mainline, that will get installed later. The pickup tube to the sprinkler stream has a small SS screen installed so I'm not worried about debris entering the sprinkler heads



Check valve and back flow preventer are two different devices. The back flow preventer has an air gap between two check valves which is necessary to prevent chemical from entering your tap water. 


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## aliva (Jul 6, 2020)

Well jlesser27 your absolutely correct. I just ordered a pressure backflow preventer


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## jlesser27 (Jul 6, 2020)

aliva said:


> Well jlesser27 your absolutely correct. I just ordered a pressure backflow preventer



Better to be safe than sorry. 


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## Dhal22 (Jul 6, 2020)

aliva said:


> Well jlesser27 your absolutely correct. I just ordered a pressure backflow preventer



Reduced pressure zone backflow preventer? Even safer than a bfp.  But a Watts 007 should be plenty.


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## tq60 (Jul 7, 2020)

Mixrite is one of the self contained units.

Dial in the percentage and it does the rest.

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## aliva (Jul 7, 2020)

I looked at Mixrite , too expensive. Most of the injectors I looked at were in the 300-500$ range. Beyond my budget


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