The Wonders of a Sausage Tin
Branded as a ready-to-eat snack within the Jamaican household, sausages are a quick and tasty treat. However, their metallic container extends beyond hosting these small but delectable delights. Sausage tins have been recycled and re-purposed into an innovative and low cost measuring tool for monitoring the flow rate of a farmer's drip irrigation system.
Often times the flow rate of a farmer’s drip system needs to be checked to ensure that an equitable amount of water is reaching all the plants on the farm.
So how is this sausage tin used?
The typical sausage tin used in Jamaica measures roughly 100 ml. So after several meals involving these mini delights, farmers can place these tins throughout their farms, directly under the drip hose openings (emitter). This will further enhance the accuracy of the reading.
Then set a timer to monitor the water catchment in the tins. Let’s say we’ll leave the tins out in the field for about 30 minutes to reach full capacity. After the allotted time has passed, the farmer can retrieve the tins to observe if the same amount of water has been deposited in all of the tins.
Now farmers can determine the amount of water being deposited in the tins by simply dividing the size of the sausage tin (100 ml) by the time allotted (30 minutes).
Equation Example: (100 ml / 30) = 3.33 ml per minute
This of course will lead us into an infinity of 3.33. However, from this activity the idea is that the farmer can determine how much water per minute plants are receiving from the drip system. In this case, the plants are receiving 3.33 ml of water per minute (which is roughly a little over half of a teaspoon of water). On the other hand, if the tin were to be filled in around 10 minutes, then we know that each plant would be receiving 10 ml of water per minute (which is roughly a little over half of a tablespoon).
If the water being distributed to the plants is uneven, then it simply means that the flow rate of the drip system is slow in some areas of the field and fast in others. This may be due to a malfunctioning drip hose, or the drip system itself has been blocked by debris and needs cleaning. This activity therefore assist farmers in determining how efficient their drip system is distributing water to the plants.
So the next time you open a tin of these mini delectables, think on the wonders of the sausage tin!
