All of my trees are in pretty good shape. I would really like to pay a lot of attention to them this year in hopes of putting on some nice growth so I can hopefully get a my first crop next year. I did get a few flowers this year but they were all killed with our late frost. Leaves seem to be in good shape though.

Thanks

The rule of thumb is only a recipe or I should say part of a recipe, other ingredients that change the ratio are soil texture, weather temps, humidity and wind. Mulched trees lose less water to evaporation and some mulches can store water.

Ultimately, to become a knowledgeable gardener, you start with a recipe but get your hands in the soil to see how long it takes to dry out. Gradually you will learn the perfect level of moisture for the trees and other plants- that Goldilocks point of not too wet- not too dry.

Once the trees get to a decent size and are bearing fruit you will probably want to be stingy with water to improve fruit quality.

Even new trees rarely need water here as long as they're mulched.

I think one of the main reasons mulch retains so much soil moisture is that it completely shades the sun from the ground and blocks wind evaporation. In our soils, with mulch, water just sits under there until the tree uses it up.

It is spring drought that is most dwarfing. This year my bare roots that I had sized up for a couple of years and then moved definitely suffered. Worst early spring drought in decades!

Olpea, I've read in soil text books that mulch is not as affective as people assume at stopping evaporation, in that soil itself has a similar affect. The wind and sun only works on the top couple inches, apparently.

My text books could be wrong, of course (the two I have on my shelf are 25 years old), but mulch works in many ways to retain water. It even creates it (probably not much) as it breaks down and the, uh, carbos are released from the hydrate, so to speak. I wonder if mulch doesn't also feed and increase the affect of the mychorizal fungus, augmenting that symbiosis which is known to help trees withstand drought as the hyphae increase (extend?) water access for the tree.

Normally I wouldn't even worry about watering but it is a strange year. The little rain that we've had in lower Michigan has mostly gone just north of us. I haven't even opened my lawn sprinkler system yet so my lawn has pretty much gone dormant already. Never seen a spring drought like this. Only about 40-60 miles north of year, they have had too much rain. All the rivers up there have been flooded.

Thanks for the tips everyone. Just went out with my 2 year old and watered my 5 paw paw trees today (2 of which I suspect might be dead)

Hman,

I hadn't considered the effect of mulch itself breaking down and producing water (much like when fuel is burned - CO2 + H2O). That makes sense.

I do think the evaporative effect is more than the textbooks infer. I'm sure you've recognized when a tree/plant is heavily mulched, the soil beneath can be very damp, where soil outside the mulched area is bone dry. I've noticed the same thing when I've put down black plastic. It stays wet (almost mud) under there for a long time.

Yes, they use water as well, but they shade the soil, making it cooler, which means there is way less evaporation.

Mulching is good for the soil too. It protects the soil fromn the sun, but it also protects it from wind, which can dry it out, and rain, which can compact it. Certain tree leaves can put certain minerals back into the soil, creating light, fluffy "tilth", which most plants thrive in. THis "tilth" also holds water liek a sponge.

As far as mulch, I mix grass/clover clippings with wood chips created by my chipper, let it all compost some and it makes a perfect mulch, that usually breaks down by the next year. There is a huge difference in moisture and temperature under the mulch then in the surrounding sand soil. This appears to be enough, and after a few years, the soil around the tree becomes very rich, holds water, and I don't even need to mulch any more.