There is severe fall drought going on in MA. We didn’t have decent rain for several month. I am doing some work on my garden and flower beds and the soil is powder dry. The wild trees around already dropped all the fall leaves - kind of early for them to be completely bare in the beginning of November. Young orchard trees, with exception of apples also either done shedding or in the end of the process. My question is about watering. Does it make sense to water the orchard now? The is no good rain expected for next two weeks.
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I’ve been giving almost everything a good thorough watering every few weeks, and the not really established stuff more frequently. It’s bad. Very unusual for us to go this long without rain.
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I think watering would be advisable.
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We’re under a reduced water use advisory here, hopefully all my stuff does ok. The reservoir is getting low!
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We have well water and i do not see a change in it and I could see some water on the bottom of my creek, so I guess we do have some water left, but it is about 10-15’ deeper than my orchard is.
Similar here. Tributaries flowing to the local river are basically mud with a thin slip of water up the center. Sad to see things this low.
I would water if you have the ability. We had been having a drought until Hurricane Helene sent up a bunch of rain. Now it’s dry again (well, we just got a little rain today).
Now my honeyberries are waking up and flowering. I am a little concerned about winter damage and wondering if I could have avoided the stress on them if I had watered while we were in that drought.
water but dont water too much. you want them to go dormant not push growth. we had a severe drought in 2020. then we got 2in. of rain in late sept. that took alot of trees out of dormancy and started them growing then a big early oct frost hit killing what was growing. even trees in the woods got killed. water sparingly.