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[Yarma]

I am failing at the irrigating and starting. I always seem to get frozen water or no water. When i do get water i tried to use the channel to move to to where i wanted irrigating and it did nothing. If i could get some adivce on irrigating I would be very gratefull.

Edit: I have a silt floor cavern and a river nearby. How would I get the water there to make the mud. I have tried a channel buy it will not flood the cave.

Yarma.

P.S Sorry if there is a post like this somewhere. I tried the search and couldnt see one.

[Bronzebeard]

Relatively simple:

Your river presumably occupies two z-levels (really one, but it shows up on two): the surface, and a level underground.
Dig out your farm on the underground level of the river, a few tiles away from it and dig out a small tunnel to the river without breaking through it and having it flood all over.
Seal your farm room with a door or two from the rest of the fortress.
Make three mechanisms.
Use one to build a lever outside the farm room.
Make a floodgate.
Build the floodgate at the end of the tunnel leading to the river, next to the wall tile that separates the tunnel from the water on the other side.
Use the other two mechanisms to connect this floodgate to the lever.
Pull the lever, opening the floodgate, exposing the wall tile.
Have your miner break through to breach the river. He or she will high-tail it out of there and the room will proceed to flood. I recommend waiting until the water inundates approximately half of the room before pulling the lever again to seal the leak with the floodgate (though perhaps a little earlier since dwarves seldom get around to pulling a lever quickly enough).
The water will eventually evaporate and you'll have nice, farm-able mud! :3

To forgo any lingering confusion, here's a visual:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

River flow controlled by a floodgate triggered by a lever. A lot easier to see than to thread it through a list. The doors are there simply to contain the water from flooding out into the tunnels.

[Yarma]

THANKYOU! Your a life saver of me dwarfs.

[Bronzebeard]

Your dwarves are most welcome!

[Snook]

Personally, I use reservoirs.

I build whatever size farm room I want, and then dig out one square in the wall which will link to my reservoir. My reservoirs size is based on the following formula:

(F/6)+(F/25) = R

Where "F" is the size of the farm room. Thus, an 11x11 room (my standard) needs a reservoir of 25 squares. From the reservoir, I dig to the water and stop short. I put a floodgate on both entrances to the reservoir, and link them to 2 levers. Then, just channel the rest of the way to the water (I use streams/brooks/etc.) Pull lever A, let res fill up, pull lever A again (close the water access) and then pull lever B to unleash your (carefully calculated) flood. Presto! Reusable irrigation! The res can also be used as a stepping-stone for other water needs in a fortress (wells, drownex, etc) and you can easily string a bunch together and mass-link them to your 2 levers. Make sure to drain your res (unleash the flood!) before attempting expansion.

[TomiTapio]

I just use crude reservoirs, no floodgates or levers. Drain a pool into the prepared underground area. Well at homebase-level, water reservoir room one level lower.
Build a wall to restore integrity of above-ground pool and to seal off against wildlife.

[Trekkin]

If the mechanics and hydrodynamics of resevoir area give you trouble, you might try a trick I've used when i didn't have time to create a proper irrigation system: simply hollow out the area you want to farm in and a connecting tunnel close to the river as before, but instead of a floodgate, channel out the tile three tiles away from the river/brook. build a pump on top of the connecting tiles and flood the farm area, then deconstruct and rebuild the pump in the opposite area to drain it into the brook. It's twice as labor-intensive but also frees you from worrying about how to get a fixed quantity of water to spread into a given area before evaporating.

For multiple farm levels, it's possible to adapt the technique to flood just the bottom level, then pump it back up and out through each successive level.

[Yarma]

I have 3 farms now linked by a single mine shaft to the brook. A flood gate in the way. I just loose the torrent when needed. The resevoire idea sounds usefull though.

[Psieye]

If you see snow and frozen water when you start out, but you also see trees around the place, then chances are it'll all thaw out within a few days of embark.

[Yarma]

heres one. Moving water down levels without flooding areas? And i got a river down a level that i want to use to refill a natural resevoire up a level. Would i just use a pump?