Trees use very little moisture during dormancy. Without leaves the trees use almost zero water. However moist soil is a big plus in the winter. It's just that your rainfall in winter is many times more than the trees need. You will have no shortage this winter. And I doubt this yrs drought will have any significant effect on next yrs crop.

The Fruitnut

I would think that the drought would have seriously affected the formation of buds this summer that will produce next year's blooms. Lots of trees died here and the ones that survived are in bad shape. I think there could be a very reduced crop next year. Winter injury could also be an issue, as the trees are heading into winter very stressed and weakened.

I think the effect remains to be seen depending on how stressed individual trees were. There is a wide variability in our yard with some trees losing entire limbs (I watered all my fruiting trees/bushes).

This was from a UC Davis site:

"Drought irrigation strategies must be judged not only on how production is affected in the drought year, but also on how production is affected in the following seasons. In fact, the risk of catastrophic yield reductions in nut crops is low in a given drought year, but substantial the following season unless effective drought strategies are used. This is true even if the drought lasts only one year.

This principle was illustrated in a recent test in almonds using several irrigation regimes in a simulated drought year. In each regime, a total of 16 acre-inches/acre of water was applied over a season, but with different timings. The results, where most of the water was applied early in the season, marketable yield was relatively unaffected by the drought, but production the following season was reduced by about 75 percent even though the trees were returned to full irrigation the following year. On the other hand, where some water was applied just after the harvest, the following season's yield suffered only about a 30 percent reduction."

You certainly have my sympathies -- I've heard several reports over the past week about how desperately dry it is in N. Georgia, and couldn't believe the pictures on the news of Lake Lanier (I think that is how it is spelled), or what is left of it. Kind of looks like Lake Mead in Nevada. We had a very dry summer here, for us -- about half of normal rain in June and July, a little better in August and September. Drought and heat stress will certainly affect next year's crop. Blueberries, for one, are easily affected -- we've had several dry years where they have set NO flower buds for the next year, and some wet years where they set tremendous numbers of buds -- off of 11 large, mature bushes, I've had years where I've picked four or five quarts, and several years where I've picked well over 100 quarts.

Interesting almond study. I'll be remembering that when it comes time to water if its a dry spring. Here in southwest WI we had very little rain in June/July and then in August we had 14 inches of rain! with areas around me receiving well over 20 inches (tons of records broken up here). I have heard that fall colors are affected by rain amounts in spring (along with warm weather).