“There are many different ways to manage stress in an orchard.
When you’re looking at the amount of water that’s available, strategizing how to apply that through the season is critical.” The historic drought from 2012 to 2016 forced almond growers to put into practice water-conservation strategies they’d been taught by University of California Cooperative Extension crop advisors — so say a farmer and an advisor in a newly released video on water management.
“I would say our water management improved considerably because it had to,” he says in the video, part of series on drought tips from the UC California Institute for Water Resources.
Meena has been working with David Doll, a UCCE pomology farm advisor based in Merced, to develop ways of getting the most out of every drop of water.
With almonds being a perennial crop, excessive water stress in a given year impacts not only that year’s crop but the following year’s, too, Doll says in the video.
“There are many different ways to manage stress in an orchard.
And the Sierra Nevada still has only a fraction of its average snowpack for the beginning of April, considered the season’s peak, the state Department of Water Resources reports.
To keep tree stress levels below that threshold, growers will need to decide when to apply water to reduce the impact of stress on trees, Doll and Shackel note.
Cutting back too much on water in an already under-irrigated orchard can cause severe stress, so the scientists advise tracking the orchard’s need with the use of a pressure chamber.
They scientists also provide tips for minimizing yield loss and maintaining kernel quality amid more severe seasonal water shortages.