Water Catchment

Haiku can get a lot of rain, but it tends to be seasonal with a lot more falling in the winter than summer, and this can change a lot from year to year, with periods of no rain for a couple of months. 2023 so far has been pretty consistent for rain, but 2022 (a La Nina year) was pretty dry.

The trees that we plant need some help while their roots get established so we use catchment systems to capture and store water for when it doesn’t rain. The photo show a typical system. It weighs about 100 lbs so we can move it to our next planting area. The roof area is about 100 sq ft, and for every inch of rain, we get about 60 gallons. One acre of new plantings takes about 100-140 gallons of water, per watering. We want the plants to not go more than a week without rain or watering. Storage barrels hold about 160 gallons, but we are moving to “totes” which hold 270 gallons. Putting this all together, one acre of new trees needs two catchment systems, for about 12-18 months. Then we can move them to the next planting area.

So far we use a hose and hand water but as we scale-up the planting, we will use a drip-irrigation system. The water needs more pressure than what it gets from the barrels, so we use the pump shown in the photo, connected to a car battery. Eventually we will use a solar panel.