My experience is that, while both drip irrigation and micro-sprinklers work well to deliver water to fruit trees in Southern California, they come with advantages and disadvantages. And one method is not best for all situations.

Because of this, even in my own single yard, I use drip on some of my fruit trees but micro-sprinklers on others.

My goal in this post is to help you decide which might work better on your trees in each of their contexts.

What are drip irrigation and micro-sprinklers?

Before diving into the pros and cons, let me be clear on what I mean by drip irrigation. I mean tubing that has emitters (essentially, holes) which allow water to slowly drip out.

By micro-sprinkler, I mean a product that spits out water either in a stationary pattern or in a spinning pattern.

Pros and cons

Now for the pros and cons of each. Pros first.

Drip irrigation: PROS

1- Drip emitters apply water in the same location no matter the water pressure. In contrast, with micro-sprinklers, a change in water pressure makes the spray from the sprinkler go different distances. For some homes, a significant change in water pressure can happen if a clothes washing machine is running, someone takes a shower, or a hose is turned on elsewhere in the yard. And the advantage of drip emitters always applying water in the same spots is that the tree’s roots can proliferate in those exact spots and always access the applied water.

2- Drip emitters apply water in the same location no matter the wind. On a windy day (think Santa Anas), water from a micro-sprinkler is carried off. This causes the same problem as with a change in pressure, plus it can cause much of the water to be vaporized.

3- You can run a mower or string trimmer over drip tubing without causing damage. I find this convenient. On the other hand, you must be careful to avoid running over micro-sprinklers when managing weeds with these tools.

4- You can use non-pressure compensating drip emitters in order to apply rainwater from a tank. Even though the pressure is very low, these drip emitters will work (just at a lower rate). However, micro-sprinklers don’t work on such low pressure.

5- On a slope, drip emitters that have check valves can prevent water from “bleeding out” of the low-elevation emitters. Netafim’s Techline CV is one example of such a product. I use this on some of my trees at the bottom of my slope so that I can irrigate more uniformly up and down the slope.

6- With drip, it’s easy to estimate how much water you are applying. You just count the emitters (of known output) and multiply by the run time. For example, if under a particular tree you have eight emitters that each apply 0.5 gallons per hour, and you run the line for an hour, then you have given the tree four gallons.

7- You can use less water because drip does not wet a large surface area that is subject to evaporation whereas micro-sprinklers do.

Drip irrigation offers many advantages, but micro-sprinklers have a few advantages too:

Micro-sprinkler PROS

1- It’s easy to spot a clogged micro-sprinkler. Water not coming out of a micro-sprinkler is obvious. In contrast, a clogged drip emitter is hard to notice unless you bend down and lift up the line and observe each emitter.

2- It’s easy to increase or decrease water to a growing tree by adding a valve to the micro-sprinkler’s line or by switching sprinkler heads. (They make adjustable drip emitters and adjustable sprayers and sprinklers, but I don’t like them, as they tend to “adjust” themselves and unpredictably put out more or less water.)

3- Micro-sprinklers don’t get buried in mulch. Driplines get buried by falling leaves and prunings, and definitely by applied wood chips. So with driplines, you must periodically (once or twice per year) lift them above the mulch or else roots will grow over the lines and you’ll have to damage roots in order to do any maintenance or alterations to the dripline later on.

Now for a couple cons:

Drip irrigation: CON

Lots of product and plastic. A tree of any size can thrive on only one micro-sprinkler, but it may need many feet of dripline and multiple emitters if using drip irrigation.

Micro-sprinkler: CON

Water can be blocked by low branches and tall weeds. You must “skirt” trees and keep up on the weed maintenance more with micro-sprinklers, especially on young trees.

Cost comparison of drip versus micro-sprinkler

Using components similar to those that I use to irrigate my trees with micro-spinklers or drip, and taking current (April 2025) prices from a single online retailer (Drip Depot), I did a rough cost comparison for each irrigation method on an imaginary mature tree of about ten feet in diameter.

Drip Depot’s pressure-compensating dripline with emitters of one gallon per hour at 12-inch spacing costs $35 for 100 feet. I would use about 20 feet under such a tree, which would cost $7.

A Netafim micro-sprinkler costs $3. I often add a valve to my micro-sprinklers so that’s an additional $0.69, for a total of $3.69.

Conclusion: the materials cost about twice as much for drip.

(Assuming water savings with drip though, the lower water cost would eventually pay for the higher cost of the dripline.)

Situations where drip or micro-sprinklers are the better choice

I find that drip is often the better choice on a young fruit tree because young fruit trees need water more frequently than older ones. With drip, you can water often – even every day – without losing much water to evaporation.

Therefore, what I usually do is start fruit trees on drip. Later, around the time the tree’s canopy is ten feet in diameter, I might switch to using a micro-sprinkler. (The original dripline can be reused elsewhere.)

Bigger, older fruit trees are prime candidates for micro-sprinklers. They can be watered relatively infrequently, thereby minimizing evaporative loss and disease issues with wetting trunks (you don’t want to wet a tree’s trunk often).

Therefore, many of my mature fruit trees have micro-sprinklers, especially my deciduous fruit trees, as they need water no more than once per week in summer.

Do you have chickens that roam among your trees? If you do, you might find micro-sprinklers better. My chickens love to scratch under my fruit trees, which doesn’t affect the staked micro-sprinklers, but for the trees that have driplines it’s an annoyance. The driplines get moved by the scratching chickens no matter how well I stake them down.

Bottom line

I find myself continuing to use both drip irrigation and micro-sprinklers on different fruit trees of different ages in different parts of my yard because of the above advantages and disadvantages.

Thanks for your support so I can keep the Yard Posts coming and ad-free.

Related posts you might enjoy:

Watering fruit trees with drip irrigation

Setting up micro-sprinklers under fruit trees

Drip and micro-sprinkler troubleshooting guide

How much to water a fruit tree in Southern California, roughly