Test plots for this water-use study were in a dry-farmed almond orchard, part of which was under non-tillage and part under clean cultivation. Soil moisture sampling showed that in years of heavy winter cover crop growth, more moisture was used out of the chopped than out of the cultivated plots. But the almond trees were remarkably able to stretch the available soil moisture supply almost to the end of the growing season.

Merlin Tabor, Jr., of Capay, Carl Schoner, Farm Advisor, and K. Uriu, Department of Pomology, U. C., Davis, assisted in this study.