Three numbers decide how your season goes: EC, SAR, and iron
Not slogans — the three water parameters that quietly determine whether your emitters clog, your soil salts up, and your yield holds. This page walks through what each one means and what to do about it.
What actually breaks first
Not the crop. The infrastructure delivering water to it — quietly, months before yield numbers show it.
The clog you can't see happening
A drip emitter doesn't fail all at once. Iron and manganese narrow the opening a few microns at a time — flow visibly drops only after uniformity is already gone.
Salinity that isn't obvious until it is
Fields don't salt up in a week. Sodium accumulates across seasons until soil structure collapses and water stops infiltrating where it used to.
Equipment aging on someone else's schedule
Pumps and filters rated for clean water don't hit their spec lifespan on hard, mineral-loaded feed — replacement schedules assume water they were never tested against.
Нормативи якості
Критичні розрахункові норми
Граничні значення параметрів води для надійного функціонування системи.
Above this, roots work harder to draw water than the pump works to deliver it
The number that predicts soil structure collapse before it's visible in the field
The threshold most emitter manufacturers quietly assume you're already meeting
Етапи очищення
From borehole to emitter: four stages
Click a stage for what it removes, the equipment, and a cost range
Sand and gravel filtration
- Removes
- Removes sand and organic matter pulled in from open intakes — the single most common mechanical cause of emitter clogging.
- Equipment
- Throughput: 20–400 m³/h
What "good" looks like before fertigation
| Parameter | Acceptable limit | Standard |
|---|---|---|
| Electrical conductivity (EC) | 0.8–1.6 dS/m | Crop agronomic limit |
| Sodium adsorption ratio (SAR) | < 6 | Tarlex design spec |
| Iron and manganese | < 0.2 mg/L | Emitter manufacturer requirement |
| pH value | 6.0–7.5 | Fertigation protocol |
| Carbonate hardness | < 3 meq/L | Tarlex design spec |
Acid pH correction
- The cheapest lever you have — stops carbonates precipitating in emitters
- Fits into an existing fertigation skid without redesigning anything
- Won't touch EC or SAR — the salt load stays exactly where it was
- Someone on your team now handles acid and dosing control
Iron removal and filtration
- Removes the direct mechanical cause of clogging
- Measurably extends drip tape life
- Won't address soil salinity — that's a separate problem with a separate fix
- You'll need somewhere to send the backwash
Reverse osmosis
- The only method that genuinely lowers both EC and SAR
- Gives predictable water regardless of season or borehole depth
- The concentrate is a real disposal question
- RO strips beneficial minerals too, so the fertigation recipe gets recalculated afterward
When this solution isn't needed
If your borehole tests below 1.0 dS/m and SAR under 3, and emitters aren't clogging across a full season, save the budget — spend it on filtration and a proper flushing schedule instead. We'll say so even when it costs us the contract: a system you don't need comes back to us as a complaint in eighteen months.
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Questions worth asking before you buy anything
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