Out for a little ride in the countryside Saturday, I came across this water gun irrigating a plantation of young hazelnut trees. To me, the sight was unusual for two reasons.
One was that it was May 31. Seemed a little early in the season to expend that much water on a field.
Second, the filbert saplings were standing in neat rows separated by what looked to this city guy like a grass seed crop. The only other filbert orchards I’ve seen had bare ground, kept smooth so the nuts could be gathered once they had been shaken off the trees. But I guess that for this young orchard, harvest time is still a few years off. Meanwhile, why not grow another crop as well? (hh)
I think you have pretty well summed it up. The irrigation has the potential to shorten the development stage of the filbert (now hazelnut) crop to a commercial level by about 2 years. And OSU research has shown that the best time for irrigation to benefit the yield of a tall fescue grass seed crop, if memory serves me, is about now. Smooth bare ground is the desired surface when the nut crop comes in to its own.