what I learned about watering young trees

11 years ago

This will probably seem obvious to the farmers out there ....

Was talking to the guy that farms some of my acres this weekend while he was harvesting corn. It was a dry year here but good enough to get a decent corn crop if you got it in early.

Farmer mentioned that he could easily tell the sandy soil areas by the lower yield and shorter corn stalks. He mentioned in a normal year of rain there is no difference.

I had a couple other indicators that maybe my watering was inadequate and this kinda finalizes it.

If your soil is sandy you need to water a lot more even with mulch. I was watering new planting once weekly for the 1st year and now believe sandy soil requires more frequent watering for optimum growth. Ditto for a really dry year like this past one. (I also discovered trees in sandy soil can need additional nitrogen as it washes out of the sandy soil relatively quickly. thx to harvestman for that diagnosis.)

hopefully this will be helpful to someone else.

one of the fun things about growing these trees is you are learning something new constantly.

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Comments (2)

blackrag
11 years ago
Hi oldryder,
It helps to understand the soil you're dealing with. In my case, with heavier clay-type soil, I experienced the reverse. In my efforts to do the right thing, I killed some young peach trees by watering too much. I learned (probably through this forum) later that some stone fruits don't like having "wet feet" and I drowned them. The apples were effected much less. Now that most of my trees are established in their 3rd leaf, I let them fend for themselves. They are doing very well. Chad
fireduck
11 years ago
Watering practices (especially with young ones) is very critical...and soil plays a big part. Remember, young ones have not spread their roots well into the native soil. Therefore, frequent and shorter periods of watering is necessary. I love my inexpensive moisture meter. Dry looking soil is often wet 3 inches below.
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