Gil, we receive about 12 to 13 inches on average here, though less than 10 last year. Our soils can be very alkaline as you can imagine. The nearby high forest can have over 30 inches, mostly in the form of snow and much of the soil there is acidic. Here at lower elevations (6000 to 7000 feet) most of precipitation comes in the form of late summer thunder storms which brew almost daily over the mountains. Most of our snow is so dry that it brings little real moisture at this elevation, but does an important job of feeding the high watershed (8000 to 12000 feet) from which we eventually get our irrigation water.
>Thanks Tom, >I think New Mexico may be like our conditions. We get twenty inches - 500 >mm, between April/ May and October. The rain just stops in our spring and >our grain g crops die not ripen. I was in England in their Autumn and >could not get over the headers on the paddock with green flag on the >grain. They are using dryers and we are wishing for rain to finish the >crop. The actual rainfall is not that much different, but the evaporation >is, we have six to nine feet of evaporation. Our soils are mainly highly >alkaline, but mine are slightly acid. > >I think the largest area of Pinus radiata forests is in South Australia. >All our housing here is built from it. It grows much better here than at >home. >
