Nikki, We have had drip irrigation and/or drip tape in our 16,000 tree orchard since 1993/94. In 2012 we installed sub-surface drip in our apple tree maze. We have never been effected by drought in any years since the original installation. We have 8 wells on our 120 acres and rotate wells from year to year. Two main wells supply our 4 orchards and each orchard has 6 zones that we can run all at the same time or rotate as needed. We usually run 6 hours on in each of our 4 orchards and get water on all 4 orchards in a 24 hour period.
You might even consider drip tape as a stop gap....we use it for new plantings prior to installing sub-surface. We store it on electric cable reels.......attach the reels to the back of a tractor with 3 point hitch and drive it down the tree row as one man lays it under the trees. Tie it off at the end and go to the next. We use blue line for the supply and T-connectors to connect each row to the blue line. Blue line gets connected to our main supply line. Rolling the line sup on reels makes the system quite portable, especially in an emergency such as you have. Just a thought! Dennis Norton IPM Specialist/Certified Nurseryman Royal Oak Farm Orchard 15908 Hebron Rd. Harvard, IL 60033-9357 Office (815) 648-4467 Mobile (815) 228-2174 Fax (609) 228-2174 http://www.royaloakfarmorchard.com http://www.royaloakfarmorchard.blogspot.com ----- Original Message ----- From: Brian Heatherington To: Apple-crop discussion list Sent: Monday, May 19, 2014 9:47 PM Subject: Re: [apple-crop] Apple Bloom and Crop Potential Nikki, Can you transition to drip irrigation? A little water goes a long way with Ram tubing or solid lines with hand punched emitters if your trees are further apart. Some vineyards in CA are also burying drip lines to eliminate all evaporation. Microsprinklers are another option but not as efficient. Drip will eventually save you a lot of money if you have to buy water. We had a heavy bloom here in the south after a winter that bottomed out at 5 below. Nice crop set except Fuji (didn't get it thinned enough last 2 years). Rethinned 22+ mm fruit today with Ethrel, Sevin, NAA mix in different combinations by variety as we finally had a good thinning window. Pink Lady, Jonagold, Honeycrisp are looking good after first thinning with about a 40% further reduction needed. CrimsonCrisp required only a light thinning with MaxCel and is set (great sunburn-proof apple, easy crop load to manage). GingerGold looks great with a 50% reduction needed. GoldRush, Gala, SunCrisp are still carrying a 300% crop and I'm hoping rethinning will eliminate weeks of hand thinning. The peach crop looks good, except for some bud loss and one dead tree, all occurring on the French variety "Manon." Bloom was late, but the crop developed quickly and will be close to normal schedule. Gloria continues to be a winner. It blooms predictably late every year, can set a heavier crop without loss of flavor, has no brown rot (with a good spray program), and shows no sign of bacterial spot. However, I store peaches at 33 deg. F., 98% humidity, and it does start to lose flavor quicker than most cultivars under those conditions. Might need a higher temperature? Not a bad fruiting year so far, but I do have some anthracnose canker on the trunks of some apples that were damaged by sudden winter fluctuations several years ago. Brian Heatherington Beech Creek Farms and Orchards 2011 Georgia Highway 120 Tallapoosa, GA 30176 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ apple-crop mailing list [email protected] http://virtualorchard.net/mailman/listinfo/apple-crop
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