Try not to skimp on postharvest irrigation

“Unfortunately, an effective (deficit-irrigation) strategy has not yet been identified for walnuts and sustained moderate to high water stress … at any growth stage has been shown to affect walnut crop productivity and quality,” UC Cooperative Extension advisers Katherine Jarvis-Shean and Curt Pierce wrote in a summer walnut newsletter. Water stress in the summer can not only affect the current season’s kernel size and quality, but as buds are developing, severe stress in this period will typically reduce bloom counts and yield potential in the following season, they wrote. For more precise irrigations, the UC provides weekly crop-water loss estimates, or evapotranspiration (ET), reports on its Sacramento Valley Orchards ET page.