Irrigation System Design & Planning for Agriculture, Landscape and Golf

Planning an irrigation system involves far more than choosing equipment. It begins with understanding how water behaves across your site, how crops, turf, or landscapes actually use that water, and how the system will function not just today, but well into the future.

Vanden Bussche Irrigation partners with growers, landscape professionals, and golf course teams across Ontario to design new irrigation systems and optimize existing ones. As both a distributor and design partner with decades of hands-on experience, our team sees how early planning choices directly affect system efficiency, performance, and long-term dependability.

Why Irrigation System Planning Is Critical

Most irrigation challenges don’t stem from faulty products. They arise from systems that were never designed with real operating conditions in mind.

Problems like uneven water distribution, pressure inconsistencies, excessive water consumption, or frequent maintenance issues often trace back to early design oversights. When planning is rushed or incomplete, these issues tend to persist season after season—regardless of the equipment installed.

Ontario’s diverse conditions make thoughtful planning even more essential. Fluctuating weather patterns, varied water sources, and a wide range of applications demand irrigation systems that are flexible, efficient, and built for long-term operation from the outset.

Key Elements of Irrigation System Design and Planning

While every irrigation project is unique, effective planning consistently addresses a core set of considerations. Strong system design balances technical requirements with how the system will be used on a daily basis.

A deeper dive into these principles is available in our expert guide to irrigation system design. At a high level, planning focuses on the following factors.

Water Source and System Capacity