Micro-Sprinklers

Micro-sprinklers sit between drip and impact heads on a production operation: overhead watering across a propagation or growing-on house, under-canopy irrigation on pot-in-pot and field blocks, and wide-pattern coverage of container beds where a dripper per pot is not practical. Below are spinners, fixed jets, inverted greenhouse heads, bubblers and stake assemblies from Netafim, Rivulis, Tavlit, Antelco, Maxijet, Toro, Irritec, Rain Bird, Senninger through Hunter, and Dramm.

The decision that matters most is not the brand. It is whether every head on the zone sees clean water at a steady pressure inside its published working window. Get that right and most of these lines run for years. Get it wrong and no nozzle choice rescues the uniformity.

Spinner, fixed jet or inverted head: which type fits the block?

Start with where the water lands, not with a catalog.

Overhead in a greenhouse or hoop house. Use heads built to hang under the lateral: Senninger's inverted micro-sprinkler, the Rivulis Super Green Spin, Tavlit's 803 and flat-angle 866, and Dramm's Drop Inversion and Pin-Perfect hanging assemblies. Netafim's SpinNet is designed on 3 ft spacing, 2 to 7 ft above the crop, and its check valve stops the line draining onto the plants at shutdown. Drip control is the thing to specify here, not throw.

Container beds and pot-in-pot outdoors. Upright spinners on stakes give the widest, most even pattern; Senninger's upright throws 18 to 29 ft at 1.5 to 3 ft height. Maxijet and Antelco both supply heads made up on a stake with tubing and adapter, the quickest way to build a container block.

Under-canopy on field-grown stock and liners. Fixed jets and mini spinners with a part-circle or range limiter: Maxijet's 300° jet has a break that keeps water off trunks and its 240° suits edge rows and structures, Tavlit's 850 covers 200°, and the Irritec SpinRite PC, Rivulis S2000 and Tavlit RJC converter shrink the pattern for young trees, then open up as they grow.

Narrow strips and bed edges. Rivulis Flipper throws a strip down the row, Dramm's T-Drop gives a 10 by 5 ft ellipse, and Tavlit's 850 overlaps from both sides. Tavlit's 807 bubbler handles basins and large containers. Propagation that needs true mist belongs on the misters and foggers page.

What pressure, filtration and flow does the zone need?

Every line publishes a working window, and they differ. Rain Bird's Micro Bird Jet runs at 10 to 30 psi, Tavlit's Mini Compacts at 14.5 to 32, Netafim's SuperNet at 25 to 50, the Rivulis Super Green Spin at 30 to 45. Above the window a spinner mists and drifts; below it the diameter collapses. Put a pressure regulator on every zone. Hunter's Senninger regulator range runs from a 1/2 in MPR at half a gallon a minute to a 2 in PRU at 100 gpm.

On long laterals or sloping ground, specify pressure-compensating heads. Antelco's Rotor Rain Plus PC and Toro's Micro-Sprinkler PC hold flow across 20 to 60 psi, and Rivulis, Tavlit and Irritec each offer PC builds. A flat house on a short, regulated lateral does not need PC.

Orifices here start around .026 in, and screen requirements step with nozzle size: Rain Bird recommends 150 mesh for the Micro Bird Jet, Rivulis 120 mesh for Rondo nozzles up to 40 l/h and 60 mesh above 70 l/h, Tavlit 100 mesh up to 40 l/h. Filter to the smallest nozzle on the zone; see filtration.

Add up the heads too. SpinNet greenhouse models run 11.7, 18.4 or 23.4 gph at 32 psi; Dramm JetRain nozzles are 0.48, 0.79 or 1.37 gpm each. That total sets how many heads a lateral and valve can carry. Send us the layout with your quote request and ask us about zoning.

The mistakes we see, and how the lines differ

The failures repeat. Inverted heads hung with no drip control, so every shutdown drains the lateral onto the bench below; the fix is a check valve or leakage-prevention device, which SpinNet builds in, Rivulis offers as the Super LPD, and Dramm supplies as No-Drip Extension Check Valves and run-out valves. Mixed nozzle sizes on one zone, which means uneven precipitation. Heads spaced to the catalog diameter instead of overlapping: Dramm's Drop Inversion throws 24 ft with the line 5 ft over the crop and sits 12 ft apart, and their advice to hang one line, test it, then copy it holds for any brand. A screen sized to the largest nozzle rather than the smallest. And on outdoor blocks, insects in the orifice, which is what SuperNet's drop-down plate, Tavlit's 831 and 841 swivels and Toro's retracting VI Classic spinner exist to stop.

The lines approach the same job differently. Netafim builds regulation and self-flushing into the SuperNet head itself. Rivulis runs from the Hadar 7110 with swappable inserts through PC and non-PC pairs to the Flipper for frost strips. Tavlit covers the same ground with plain, serviceable heads, including the Series 700 whose vibrating needle keeps its own nozzle clear. Maxijet and Antelco are built around containers and supply assemblies made up on the stake. Rain Bird's snap-fit jets and LFX heads change nozzles without tools. Dramm is the greenhouse overhead system: JetRain, Pin-Perfect and Drop nozzles with the check valves to match.