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Fruit & Orchards

Can width make up for depth in watering?

15 years ago

I have several fruit trees in my backyard that receive full sun all day. I use the dirt around them to make a kind of "moat" by building up a wall around the tree, usually as wide as the branches of the tree. Each spring I increase the width of the "wall". On some of the trees, the depth of the moat is not very much, maybe a half to three quarters in deep. The others are built up to 3-4 inches deep. On the more shallow ones, the width of them is perhaps twice the diameter of the tree itself. Can that compensate for the lack of depth? I fill the moats each time I water. Should I fill the shallow ones twice each time?

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Comments (3)

cowboyup4christ
15 years ago
As long as the ring holds the same amount of water it is the same so a circle wider but shallower can hold as much water as a smaller deeper ring. it is volume that you need to calculate.
rcnaylor
15 years ago
Mathematically correct Cowboy. But, here is the fly in the ointment. If the smaller berms are the size of the "branches of the tree" then they are out to the drip line of the trees. This is where most feeder roots are, and the ones that get the water too.

Watering where the tree has no roots, such as way out past the drip line, really doesn't get water to the tree.

But, I'd encourage the original poster to think about it a little differently. What he really should shoot for is depth of watering in the drip zone of the tree. Good deep waterings are the best for the tree. Then let them dry out and water deeply again. The shallower "moats" can do fine if he lets the water run in slowly enough. Either with drip nozzles or with soaker type hoses.

There are other ways to water slowly in a shallow moat so as to penetrate the root zone deeply, but, they usually take more time and effort, such as letting a hose trickle and keeping an eye on it and them moving it.

If you use a garden hose, you might check in to one of those inexpensive hose end timers.
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The root system of most trees extends out to two to three times the diameter of the canopy (way out past the drip line), and the majority of tree roots can be found within the top two feet of soil. As stated above, slow deep watering is preferred over shallow frequent watering, but it is also important to realize that tree roots extend out much further than is often realized by many.

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