Great way to start my Monday, thank you!

Thank you Andrew! On a Friday afternoon no less, perfect timing :) Have yourself a great weekend!

You've got the right of it! Toro's, I believe, is called Spray to Drip Retrofit Kit and it works with their 570 Series sprays -- the current model includes a threaded 25 PSI pressure regulator that even allows larger tubing sizes to be used if it will be a larger zone :)

Wolfgang, you've got the right of it with aquarium water! A colleague of mine has found a dual use that's interesting -- he's using his aquarium (it's a very large one) for his seedlings. The lights keep the soil warm so that they can sprout, and the aquarium water has enough nutrients to keep them growing after they sprout their "true leaves." It's a great setup that makes sense for the exact reasons you noted.

now i had idea how to grow parthenocarpic varieties outside of greenhouses, where they'd be polinated - IF WE DON'T CUTTHEIR FLOWERS OFF BEFORE leaving just their unpolinated fruits. on my balcony, of course, i'll also cultivate cucumbers variety puccini due to no one else would do so in the neighborhood. quite difficult finding such varieties , just found from ucraine by etsy,. ginoecious calypso has amazon i.e. for 1,5€ each seed!@@dripdepot

i'd fix a fuel saver (4€ aliexpress) around the filter's tube(s) even for more fertirrigation efficiency.@@dripdepot

james fry uses such system w/ water deposit below the soil w/ a pump working by a timer for moving the fertirrigation above through the tubes w/ valves@@dripdepot

other idea how to avoid polinization of parthenocarpic varieties (cucumbers...)by wind or insects: cutting their flowers off if not in greenhouses, but outside@@dripdepot

Do you know how many emitters in total you have in your 1/4" line? Most regulators require a minimum flow rate of about 30 GPH in order to begin regulating correctly -- under that amount and it might not be regulating the line. Also, check the PSI of the regulator, 1/4" drip line works best at around 25 PSI. Is the 1/4" hose soaker hose (porous across its entire length) or drip line (holes with emitters beneath them at evenly spaced intervals, usually 6", 9", or 12")? If it's a soaker hose type, a regulator may not help as soaker hoses aren't pressurized like other types of irrigation. Happy to help either way if the above doesn't get you up and running :)

Great question -- it is generally recommended to cap off the other heads. This is because the run time of a law/turf system tends to be much shorter than the run time of a drip system. If you ran cycles for the lawn, the drip wouldn't put out enough, and if you ran the cycles for drip, the lawn would get way too much water. With that said, we have seen folks that run with it uncapped -- they tend to use higher flow drip emitters (micro sprinklers, spray jets, etc) or use a higher quantity of drippers so the plants fed by the drip system get enough water. It makes the drip lose a bit of its efficiency, but not extremely so. I'd say in most cases it's best to cap them off, but if that isn't viable, it can be planned around to some degree :)

You bet, conversion is compatible with a Rachio system -- if you already have the controller and everything it works out great, as that zone can simply become your drip zone and you can adjust programming as needed. For the second question, is that in regards to smart watering, where the controller automatically adjusts the duration based on local precipitation? I haven't used a Rachio myself (they're good controllers though), but I have used some other smart controllers (Hydrawise and Bhyve) and the process is the same, so might be for the Rachio too -- in the app, you can turn on smart watering and this will adjust watering cycles, both duration and frequency, based on local cloud weather data :) You'll want to make sure to identify the various zones as either drip or turf, as drip will need longer cycles, but smart controllers should be able to recognize that so long as you designate the drip zone as a drip zone.

@@dripdepot thank you so much for the detailed response! I just realized a possible problem I might face with this though. I have about four heads on the zone that I wanted to use. I planned on moving the other 3 heads to their own zone and converting the single head to use as drip irrigation for my beds. I'm no expert but wouldn't all four of those heads be hooked up to a single main line coming from the underground sprinkler control box? So basically I wouldn't be able to move the extra heads but would instead be forced to cap them off and figure out another way to water the lawn that that zone covers. Am I correct in my hypothesis or way off?

@@siriusbusiness2351 You've got it all exactly right! Your instincts for this are good :) That means the options basically are: cap off all the heads or risers that you're not converting to drip, or dig install another valve and cut into the existing pipe to move the other sprinkler heads to their own zone. The second option is generally best if you want to continue to use the others for the turf -- this also allows you to run the drip zone longer while keeping the shorter lawn cycles.

You may not need one either way -- if it's an existing sprinkler system, there's a very good chance you'll have backflow prevention already in case. We do include one with our conversion kits out of an abundance of caution. Every municipality has different rules on backflow preventer, and they can vary to a large degree (though they do all agree that it's necessary). We include them in the conversion kits just to be on the safe side, as some places will require them. Basically, you might not need an additional one either way if some is already present (and if it's converting an existing system, there should be), but do double check with local water officials to make sure :)