Microtubing or ''spaghetti tubing'' is a very fine plastic tubing used in

drip irrigation Drip irrigation or trickle irrigation is a type of micro-irrigation system that has the potential to save water and nutrients by allowing water to drip slowly to the roots of plants, either from above the soil surface or buried below the surface. ...

, typically in

garden A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate both ...

s and

greenhouse A greenhouse (also called a glasshouse, or, if with sufficient heating, a hothouse) is a structure with walls and roof made chiefly of Transparent ceramics, transparent material, such as glass, in which plants requiring regulated climatic condit ...

s, with a small inside diameter which may be 0.05" or smaller. It was introduced in the 1950s in the United States, in

Watertown, New York Watertown is a city in, and the county seat of, Jefferson County, New York, United States. It is approximately south of the Thousand Islands, along the Black River about east of where it flows into Lake Ontario. The city is bordered by the ...

. By the 1960s, most greenhouse research and commercial operations used the drip pipe system with

plastic mulch Plastic mulch is a product used in plasticulture in a similar fashion to mulch, to suppress weeds and conserve water in crop production and landscaping. Certain plastic mulches also act as a barrier to keep methyl bromide, both a powerful fumigant ...

.Freddie R. Lamm, James E. Ayars and Francis S. Nakayama (Editors) Microtubing is inserted directly into the supply tubing, usually without any fittings. The flow is regulated by the inside diameter of the tube and the length of tubing used. The smaller the diameter and the longer the tube, the greater the friction loss, thus reducing the pressure and flow. The end of the tube may have a plastic or lead weight to hold the tube in a pot. Microtubing is one of the oldest products made for drip irrigation, having been manufactured for about fifty years. It has largely been replaced by other drip irrigation products such as emitters, microsprinklers, and

drip tape Drip irrigation or trickle irrigation is a type of micro-irrigation system that has the potential to save water and nutrients by allowing water to drip slowly to the roots of plants, either from above the soil surface or buried below the surface. ...

. The system can be compromised, as the larvae of '' selenisa sueroides'' (owlet moth) has damaged a system in the citrus groves of south Florida. The caterpillars of the moth had munched holes in the plastic tubing to penetrate the pipes and then

pupate A pupa ( la, pupa, "doll"; plural: ''pupae'') is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation between immature and mature stages. Insects that go through a pupal stage are holometabolous: they go through four distinct stages in their ...

. They seemed to prefer black tubing compared to coloured tubing. It has also been found that the roots of some of the crop can go into the tubing.

References

See also