Topics in Subtropics

The best key to unlock efficient irrigation practice is to know exactly how much water your crop uses and replace it in a timely fashion that matches your irrigation system capacity and avoids crop stress and water logging.

Vertebrate pests that have caused damage to citrus trees include rodents and small mammals, large mammals, and birds. Citrus orchards provide food and shelter for a number of these pests, and damage may be severe if the pest resides in the orchard.

The three things which seem to be unavoidable during life in the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley are death, taxes, and a considerable price premium in the marketplace for having the earliest of the early citrus for sale.

There are many changes going on in the citrus industry and one opportunity is the conversion of an orchard to another variety of citrus. If this is a consideration, then the question becomes one of whether the orchard should be topworked or replanted with new nursery trees.

Deficit irrigation research by Dr.David Goldhamer has yielded some interesting results in navel oranges.