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<pre>Despite being fairly new to the olive business I felt I had to offer some
thoughts on the subject of water stress.

I base my watering programme on the opinion that olive trees like 1000mm of
water (rain) per year. I then took the figures from the UC Handbook giving the
water requirements in gallons per day. Using these figures and converting them
into an annual rate of 1000mm I came up with a monthly requirement. (I added 6
months to the Californian dates). Then I irrigate to those levels, adjusting
for actual and expected rainfall. Finally, of course, there was always the
test involving sticking a thumb into the ground to feel if it was damp!

This calculation gave me, for example, a water requirement for a January of
166mm and for a July of 25mm. It seems to work and, as I am only watering the
area around the tree, does not require massive amounts of unproductive watering.
However, it may be that my trees are a little too dry to cope with the heavier
frosts so I have been "overdoing it" during the coldest parts of the year.

Dan Burnet


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