Yes.

I've noticed the commercial farmers watering their almonds this past week as they will be blooming in about 10 days, so I guess if they need to water, so do we! We did get some rain this weekend, but nothing significant, so I'm going to water my trees this week. Elaine

The trees don't use water when they don't have leaves. So you are really concerned with the soil. Dig down as far as you can. If the soil is pretty dry, I'd water several inches. But just because the commercial growers are watering doesn't mean you need to. Growers often overwater in the spring. Or maybe they have limited pumping capacity and have to start early.

Overwatering in the spring when soil is cold can aggravate iron deficiency problems and actually reduces early root growth if your soil has any problem with slow drainage.

And you never know what the weather has in store. It might rain 10 inches the next two months like it did in much of CA last yr.

The Fruitnut

No leaves is not the same as dead. The tree still needs moisture in the soil, from rain, irrigation or whatever.

Yes. I water to make sure it is not bone dry like this January (I ran the equivalent of 1 week summer water application the entire winter todate). I plan to have my soil water at Field Capacity by the time the fruit blooms and would then water if the remaining rains are not enough by end of February. I then hold off watering until around mid-May when I start and then slowly increase my drip irrigation.

I usually apply my fertilizers just before the last season's rainy forecast. The idea is that the fertilizers would already be at the root zones by the time the plants needed them in the early summer.

Californian,

I would start by doing what Fruitnut suggested and dig down in the soil to see how much moisture is there. During dormant season fruit trees do not need the same amount of moisture as they would during the growing season but the soil also should not be bone dry as you don't want the roots to dry out.

But it is really important to understand your own soil and drainage conditions. What one person does make not be appropriate for another. While the lack of January may have dried out some well drained soils, other soils may still have ample moisture.

I checked the soil in my cherry orchard and there is sufficient moisture that I am not even near having to irrigate. My other orchard has different soil and the ground is close to needing irrigation so it really depends. I would not just irrigate without knowing how much moisture is in the soil. Overwatering can be even more damaging.

Regarding the almonds, the growers in my area are irrigating because the buds are starting to break on some of the varieties. Also, some of the orchards are in areas where the soil has really dried up due to the lack of rainfall. It isn't due to pumping capacity or any of the othe reasons.

Again we get no rain. The weather report has been saying rain for the past two days but all we got here were a few drops that evaporated within a few minutes of when they hit. I was looking at the doppler radar you can see on the government weather website and its raining 20 miles from me but nothing here. The weather report even says its supposed to be raining as I type this but its bone dry outside. I bet this month will go down as the driest January in recorded history. Well I'm going to water tomorrow and give up on hoping for any measureable rain this year. Trouble is I have pure clay soil on a hill so most of the water just runs off. Maybe I will rebuild the berms I had made to keep the water from running off, although they make it hard to mow the grass.

Small rototiller side ways make easy berm around plant can go straight the first time in that clay be best. Roots need water all winter if they Dry out plant die.