Is it worth watering fruit trees ?

[Brack]

I've been shoving a 10 litre watering can full on each tree every other day. But then most of the trees were bare roots planted in spring or 2 apples on M27 planted last year.

Apples seem ok on the 2 trees that aren't sulking (one of this year's/one last year's) although I thinned them to 2 per branch back at the start of June.

[nickdub]

Sounds about right - with young trees its not really about the fruit at this stage, its just making sure they survive through the dry spell.

[Losos]

My solution is two coke bottles and watering at depth
I soon found out that you needed the sand otherwise the bottle uses as a plug gets blown away in high winds

A great idea and quicker to implement than the steel pipe idea so that's a big plus and I do like your engineering drawings

I think nickdub's main point is that we should do something, especially in this weather, I never thought I would say it but it's gone on a bit too long for me now

I say that as someone who once spent six months in the Saudi Arabian desert working outside most of the day (We went in the aircon workshop for a few hours around mid day 'tho)

[nickdub]

I think nickdub's main point is that we should do something, especially in this weather, I never thought I would say it but it's gone on a bit too long for me now

Pretty close - though to put it in other words what I was trying to say was :- have a think about any fruit on your trees, and if decide to do nothing that's fine, but let it be an actual 'no, I'm not watering because ...' rather than 'Oh, I never thought about it' or ' I didn't realise there was a possible problem ' or whatever.

Happy gardening :-)

[devonuk]

I read somewhere, and it seems likely to be true, that trees are trying to make next year's fruit buds now, so drought stress will affect next year s harvest too.

[nickdub]

That's true up to a point, but the formation of the fruit buds for next year is a relatively low-demand project for the tree, so it would have to be really drought-ridden to fail that way - where as producing a fruit corp is a massive investment, in terms of energy and for the amount of water needed both to swell the fruits and to keep them cool.

[Hereford fruit grower]

It must depend a bit on the soil, surely?

My dwarf apple, pear and plum trees look OK so far although I'd be worried if it carries on for another month. If I was 50 km further south in Ross-on-Wye, with a very freely-draining soil, they might be suffering more. The cider apple trees in the field next door which are on MM106 look fine.

My apricot tree on the other hand is merely putting on far more lush vegetative growth than I want. Please, stop ... trees on St. Julien aren't meant to be that size.

I've been digging steps up a steep slope in another part of the garden. The soil at below 200 mm depth is pretty moist from the ~50 mm we had a month or so ago. So I think I'll manage longer than most. That local downpour, early June I think, seems to have been decisive, plus the loam being extremely moisture-retentive but without losing its drainage.

[nickdub]

Oh yes you're quite right, soil and site are the biggest factors ( along with local weather of course). I'm on a sloping site facing South at about 500' above sea level and the soil is limestone based and rather thin on top of very free draining stone. It can be wet through in Spring, then two dry days later you can dig it over no problem.

Anyway I'm not worried about my really big fruit trees - their roots really go down and spread out. However trees up to about 15 or 20 foot high with a decent crop on are another matter.

One of the trickiest bits about this is trying to gauge when a problem for a tree is in prospect. If you wait until the leaves start to flag because the tree doesn't have enough water, then it will already be too late to stop the fruit from having been affected. Of course you will quite likely still get a crop, but the fruit size and the overall weight will be less than it would have been if the tree had been watered.

[Cadalot]

I have extended the water system I have so that I can access stand pipes from either end of my plot




The right half has been there since 2013 and I've taken over the left half this year and I'm in the process of clearing and have it covered with weed membrane at the moment and as soon as we don't have the blazing sun I will get into digging weeding and putting in the infrastructure of beds and offset hoses so that I have an offset between every other pair of beds or m3 along the length of the plot.

[boatsman]

I have an extensive drip feed irrigation system with a ring of drippers surrounding each tree. the system is automatically controlled and when the rains start in October I just turn off the water supply. I understand these systems are available in the U.K. but I have no idea how expensive they are.

[Selymbria]

Drip feed systems are available in UK and I have installed it. There are many brands incl. netafim