GPH calculated to inch

I have 12 sapling trees that required 1 inch of water per week. If using a 2gph emitter how long do I need to run it to get 1 inch of water to those plants. The drip line is hooked onto emitter and run direct to base of sapling so I don’t have a square footage I’m watering it’s directly to each tree.

Just 1 emitter per tree? Going to need more than that as it grows, or you’ll be watering all day long…

Ok good to know going forward. How long will a 2 gph emitter take to water 1 inch though? I also want to divide that 1 inch over the course of a week. So watering every 3rd day.

I’d start with 1ft square (for canopy coverage) for a saplings as your “coverage” area to calculate in/hr. Increase that at least once a year as your saplings grow — I measure the radius from the trunk to the drip line and calculate the area. I personally set Iro in Flex Daily to a single tree instead of averaging it across the zone. See this thread and included spreadsheet on how to calculate inches per hour — since these are saplings you may consider reducing the root depth a bit and deepen it as they grow. However for my orchard, I do water to 24” depth for new trees just to keep things simple and encourage deep root growth.

With 2 GPH emitters, 1ft2 canopy that you‘re targeting watering for, it should come out to ~1in/hr but please don‘t take my word for it — definitely understand how the spreadsheet and conversion formula works.

Another resource for Flex Daily:

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