How to water the apple trees in the summer?

For any gardener, it is obvious that almost every fruit tree needs to be watered periodically for better fruiting, especially in summer, because summer in our area is often characterized by exhausting heat. At the same time, excessive humidity also does not benefit the majority of plants, therefore, pursuing a good goal, it is important not to cause even greater damage to green plantings.

Apple tree is perhaps the most popular fruit crop in our country, it is on every household plot, so absolutely every owner should know the features of its proper watering in the summer.

An unequivocal answer to the question of how much water an apple tree requires in summer does not exist - this factor depends on too many factors. Obviously, the important criterion is, for example, the composition of the soil, because an apple tree is far from the most moisture-loving tree, and if the soil is not able to pass moisture through itself, then it is important not to overdo it with the amount of the latter, otherwise a swamp is formed.

Season and weather are also fundamentally important, because in the heat “swamp” is difficult to do even where the soil does not let water in, and in a rainy month it is sometimes better to refuse to water at all. Finally, the age and size of the tree also affect the rate of watering and the number of times, because a large tree, quite logical, requires much more moisture than a young sapling.

Another thing is that it is still necessary to make a start from something, therefore in some average conditions for young saplings under one year old it takes about 2.5–3 buckets per plant. By five years, this figure reaches 7–8 buckets, and after ten years, an adult apple tree needs about 13–15 buckets at a time.

There is another recommendation that advises you to spend as many buckets of water for one watering of an adult plant as the tree has turned. In any case, watering should be a carefully planned action, because it is usually carried out with settled water, so the problem should be considered as soon as possible. At the same time, watering apples on sandstone usually requires 2-3 times more water than trees growing on loam or black soil.

Naturally, due to the abundance of various factors, all of these quantities are only approximate values, and there is a more specific indicator that irrigation is correct. The fact is that water is very necessary for tree roots, which are usually located at a depth of 80–90 cm below the surface.

It is necessary to make sure that in the conditions of this or that soil represented on the site, the chosen amount of water is enough to reach such a depth in sufficient quantity, but still it did not stay there for a long time. Although the apple trees grow in the wild, where they cannot rely on regular watering by humans, the timely and sufficient moistening of the soil around the plant has a striking effect on its fruiting. Scientists estimate that the number of apples on a tree increases by about a third.

It is clear that the first in the life of a young tree watering is carried out immediately after planting, regardless of the exact seasons. But in the future for a good harvest, even a very detailed watering schedule will not be superfluous. The young sapling in the first year of life can also do three times watering - in addition to the moment of disembarkation, irrigation is done in late June and early August.

However, the intense heat makes its own adjustments. If summer is rich in hot days, during the peak heat it will not be superfluous to water young apple trees every ten days.

Under normal summer conditions, which are not characterized by abnormal heat, an adult tree is usually watered five times.

• First time occurs approximately 2-3 weeks after flowering - now he needs moisture to form the ovary.
• Repeat the procedure It should be during the period of active ripening of fruits - with a lack of moisture, the apples will turn out dry and shriveled, you should not expect a big harvest.
• Third watering produced at the time of complete separation of the buds on young shoots.
• Fourth time occurs during the fruiting of early varieties, and if the apple tree belongs to the “winter” variety, then at the moment of the beginning of its ripening.
• Fifth watering it already has a very separate relationship to summer, since it is usually produced after the fact that the foliage has been completely dropped, therefore it does not happen before the beginning of November.

In order not to make an amendment also on the peculiarities of the local climate, it is easier to focus not on calendar months, but on the stages of tree development. If the summer is hot and dry, even an adult tree will need additional irrigation if its owner wants the harvest to be good.

Usually, there are three additional procedures that are usually performed at the end of June, the first half of July, and at the time of coloring of the fruit. But at the time of flowering, as well as immediately at the first signs of its completion, it is not worth watering the apple tree, even if it seems that it is experiencing a lack of moisture.

You need to water the apple tree correctly - the vital moisture should hurt the roots as much as possible and not be wasted. Although most plants are watered under the trunk, it does not touch apple trees at all. They are watered in a slightly different way. If we are talking about young seedlings, they usually make a ring-shaped ditch around them, which has a radius of about a meter and a depth of 15 cm. It is into this ditch that all the prepared liquid is poured evenly, as this is the only way to ensure that the roots receive maximum moisture.

However, the described procedure is good only if it is not worth the sweltering heat, because otherwise the tree will be moistened only in the root part, while the higher branches will still suffer from excessively dry air. For this reason, in the maximum heat the apple tree is watered in a fundamentally different way. Of the total volume of water harvested, about half is poured into the ground — along furrows evenly lined around the trunk.

Watering continues until the earth is able to absorb moisture; when absorption stops, irrigation is stopped. The remaining water is used to spray the branches and foliage at a height of about one and a half meters above the ground, so that the tree cools as a whole and slightly moistens the air around it.

For the procedure described, a tree under the age of 35 will need about 40 liters of water at a time. And on the old columnar apple you need to get 50 liters of water. Such refreshing watering is absolutely contraindicated to produce in the middle of a hot day. Otherwise, water droplets on the foliage can cause sunburn.

In order not to bother with buckets, you can solve the problem by setting drip irrigation - this technique is especially relevant in large apple orchards, especially if grown apple varieties have relatively low growth and relatively modest water demand.The organization of drip irrigation for apple trees differs little from a similar system for any other crops.

A prerequisite for it is to use the purest water possible so that small particles do not clog the main line. Droppers are installed at a distance of 0.5–1 meters from the trunk, while for trees that have reached the age of 5–8 years, on the other hand, another line is carried out to improve watering.

An important point that many do not pay due attention is Mandatory watering of apple trees is not on the surface of the soil, but in specially prepared indentations, be it pits or ditches. The fact is that in summer, even in abundant quantities, water usually does not usually reach the roots, drying in the upper layers of the soil. Given the unproductiveness of such a method of irrigation, the gardener can spend a huge amount of water, which is rarely free, and also runs the risk of tearing his back.

In some cases, watering in any other way is completely ineffective. For example, at the time of dyeing apples, watering must be made strictly in the grooves around the perimeter of the crown.

An important factor that also affects the amount of water spent on watering is the potential amount of the crop. A significant part of the moisture received by the apple tree in the summer is spent on the final ripening of the fruit, if, of course, the ovary had formed enough at one time. If you can see that many small green apples have formed on the tree, some increase in the amount of water for irrigation will not be superfluous - it will affect the number and size of future apples. If the dosage of water is not increased at this moment, then part of the ovary will disappear, and that is at best. And at worst, the entire crop, albeit plentiful in quantity, is somewhat disappointing in its quality.

It is often possible to find recommendations regarding the fact that watering should not be done with clean water, but diluted with certain substances that will provide improved nutrition to the tree or protect it from diseases and pests. In many cases, such advice is fair (however, only under the condition of strict observance of the proportions and timing of irrigation), although it also happens that the recommendation is wrong and, instead of being useful, will cause harm. In order not to come up with tests for the apple tree on an even place, it is worth considering what you can and can not water these fruit trees with.

Obligatory and the main ingredient of the apple watering liquid in any case is water, only the question remains whether the tree has any preferences regarding its temperature. It is clear that there should be no problems at an average temperature of moisture, but someone extracts water from deep wells, where it differs, perhaps, with excessive freshness, for someone the water arrives at the site along hot pipes.

It should be noted that An apple tree can definitely be watered with cold water, unless the latter is close to the freezing point. The minimum allowable temperature of water for irrigation is considered to be +4 degrees, and although such conditions of moisture for the tree are not very good, it is better that watering than none. At the same time, cold water is used exclusively for pouring into the grooves, but irrigation of the aerial part of the plant with such water is unacceptable. Although cold water should refresh the apple in the heat, watering is carried out only at night.

There is also an opinion that it may be useful for an apple to water with boiling water - they say, this way you can get rid of pests. In the case of shrub plants, this technique does bring success quite often, but such experiments should not be carried out with an apple tree.At a minimum, such an experience would not bring much success simply because branches are watered with boiling water for pest control, and in the case of an apple tree it is unreal to reach absolutely all branches. In addition, experts advise against using hot water of +47 degrees for such purposes, and this is far from boiling water.

It would seem that iron, the high content of which is known for apple kernels, is very necessary for the normal development of the apple tree, so iron sulphate, dissolved in water for irrigation, will bring only benefit. Moreover, many gardeners claim that an aqueous solution of this substance allows you to deal with the effects of the transferred chlorosis - however, such watering, they said, should be done not in summer, but in the deep autumn, and not every year.

It should be noted that professional agronomists at the mention of such advice usually begin to spit, and categorically do not recommend listening to him. The fact is that in winter, the roots of the apple tree do not really absorb nutrients from the soil at all, and by spring the iron from vitriol will already be reliably associated with other chemical elements and will not bring benefit to the tree. At the same time, it is able to bind some useful substances for the apple, which now also become inaccessible to the apple.

Although an apple tree needs copper among other useful macronutrients, it cannot be watered even with copper sulfate. Too much of this mineral leads to the fact that small inedible areas are formed in apples, and in the most advanced cases of a tree, shoot cancer can develop, and it is impossible to precisely control the dose when watering with copper sulfate, which almost always ends with an overdose.

Even if the apple tree lacks copper by all indications, the problem is not solved by copper sulfate, but by aqueous copper sulfate in the form of a solution of 0.1%, which the plant still does not water - the leaves are sprayed with it. The use of vitriol can only cause harm to the tree.

Some gardeners are interested in the possibility of watering an apple orchard with a septic tank liquid, which, being rich in urea, could theoretically benefit the tree as a kind of fertilizer. In a sense, this statement is true, although it must be remembered that the majority of septic tanks do not have a disinfecting effect, so without special “chemistry” and steaming such swill can be a source of infection. Staying on the grass, and even getting to the fruit, this infection can cause very unpleasant consequences.

However, this does not mean that it is impossible to use slush - even, on the contrary, it should be done only according to the instructions. Such fertilizer is applied only once a year - before the first snow, and even then - not in the form of watering, but as a top dressing, applied not under the tree, but between the rows. To do this, dig a pit with a depth of four bayonets, which is then half filled with wood shavings and sawdust, and poured in on top with pumped-out slurry. From above, the slush is filled with earth, and the part of the soil that does not fit back is temporarily scattered under the trees - until the next season it serves as a heater for the plants until the pit is compacted and the land cannot be returned.

This fertilizer is very useful for many plants, but it should be used very carefully, because it is highly concentrated and in its pure form can cause burns in the plant. For irrigation, this substance must be diluted in proportion to about one part of manure per 10-15 parts of cool water. Even after that, immediately pouring the mixture under the tree is impossible - it must be infused at least 1-2 days.

As in the case of any other irrigation of apple trees, the resulting solution is not poured directly under the trunk, but is evenly distributed along a circular ditch, dug out at some distance from the trunk. It should be understood that such irrigation is not done for the sake of moisture, as for the feeding, so the dosage will be relatively modest.

Soap is widely known as a substance that effectively eliminates any infection, so many gardeners come to the conclusion that soapy water as a watering would go to the tree for good. Again, this statement is true, but only in part.

The fact is that natural soap from animal fat without the use of any synthetic additives, dissolved in water, is really able to give a positive result. However, this statement applies only to the soap solution in its pure form, and soap, it is worth repeating, should be natural. At the same time, instead of a specially prepared soap solution, summer residents often use slop, which, in addition to soap and water, also contains pollutants that have been washed away from the hands.

Considering that home-made soap is usually used with numerous additives (at least with wax to better retain the shape), too many unnecessary components fall into the composition of a potentially useful recipe, many of which are not easily decomposed in the natural environment. At the same time, they retain the main feature of the soap itself, that is, they destroy the living creatures, only their destructive properties are higher, so the living creatures die en masse.

Perhaps you should not be reminded that among the garden beetles and worms, some not only do not harm cultivated plants, but also contribute to their proper growth, pollination, and so on.

Potassium permanganate, as it is properly called, is known for its unique disinfecting properties, therefore, in some cases, its use is appropriate and reasonable. Again, like any medicine, potassium permanganate should be used in very moderate doses - then a weak solution can be used for watering the garden. However, more often such a recipe is used not for watering plants, but for disinfecting the soil before planting anything in it.

If we talk about the apple tree, then the solution of potassium permanganate is often used to combat earthworms. The latter, being in a container with young seedlings of apple, their activity can damage the thin roots of the young plant, so these uninvited guests need to get rid of as soon as possible. At the same time, the presence of worms for an adult apple does not bring any harm, because the roots become much thicker, but the constant loosening of the soil by these creatures brings only benefit, therefore potassium permanganate will bring more damage to the apple tree.

This substance can increase the number of microorganisms useful for apple trees, but the size of the garden and, accordingly, its need for such a substance are such that it would be pointless to dissolve dry yeast in water for irrigation. The process of useful fermentation cannot be started in the ground also because there is no other mandatory condition - sugar. For this reason, it is possible to use as a fertilizer, perhaps, pallet sediments from already fermented products — for example, kvass, beer, or wine.

Such a product is used in diluted form - one part of yeast to six parts of water, but in this case, the beneficial effect in the fight against rot and the other infection is not achieved as a result of watering, but in fact applied to the leaves. It is important to note that even this method in the conditions of an open garden will not work - there are too many different microorganisms, and even a single apple tree will need too much yeast to fully process.

To learn how to make a device for drip irrigation of an apple orchard, see the following video.