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<pre>Mike,
Thanks for the reply.

We have a very Mediterranean type climate. That is a wet winter (November
thought May) and no rain the remainder of the year. We had our last rain a
week and a half ago and that should be it until Oct. The trees are young but
are beginning to flower now. The drips are on once every five days. I have a
nice sized garden/orchard and don't have the time to hand water. I use
timers and drip or soaker hoses everywhere. Just trying to make sure the
Olive trees get enough water these first few years.

Scott

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Wilson [mailto:mike.wilson@...]
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2002 2:31 PM
To: OliveOil@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [OliveOil] Amount of Water for young trees


> I have a small grove of young olive trees. Where I live in California,
water
> is expensive so I set them up with a drip irrigation system. The question
I
> have is how often and much should I be watering the trees? The trees are
> about 5 feet high and are in the ground for a year and a half. Currently I
> have two 2 gallon per hour drippers on each tree. They are watered for 1
> hour once every 5 days. Is this enough water? The soil is mostly clay with
> some rocks.
>
> Any ideas would be appreciated.
>
> Thanks
> Scott

Scott,

I wouldn't be watering by the calendar, but rather by checking on the soil's
moisture. There are various ways of doing this, digging a hole is probably
the simplest, but the down side of drippers is that the water doesn't
usually travel far from the emitter, whereas the roots will cover quite a
large area. In a clay soil I find one good soak over a wide area, once a
month is better than dripping a bit each week.

Timing is also a major factor. Its your late spring / early summer I assume,
so put as much water on around flowering to get a decent fruitset, but
perhaps you might back off again after fruitset. When does your rainfall
occur? You do get rainfall, I hope?

Regards,

Mike Wilson
Hunter Valley
Australia.




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