Quote:
Originally Posted by harveyc
Soils vary a great deal, but average about 1/3 in pore space. You don't want to saturate your soil completely as roots need air also (it's not possible to saturate sandy soils unless you've got a hard pan below it). As long as you don't water more than what the soil in the plant's root zone will hold, you will not leach out fertilizers. If you water carefully, the only increase in fertilizers will be due to increased plant growth.
When I irrigate the orchards I farm I calculate how far I need to wet the soil and estimate the water needs based on calculating the volume of area I want to moisten, converting the volume of square feet into gallons (1 cubic foot = 7.5 gallons) and then run my sprinklers for the length of time I need to get the volume. This takes some experience to factor in existing soil moisture and I have soil moisture probes buried at 15" and 30" in 3 locations to monitor moisture.
|
The native soil here is pretty bad so every banana is planted with about 6 cubic feet of potting soil. There is also quite a bit of granite base around underneath so I guess I could possibly over water them. However this has not happened yet. They usually get about 32 to 64 gallons of water per cycle depending on the size of the tree and whether or not I have gotten around to adding an extra emitter. In the summer they get watered daily. I dont fertilize that often either.