Great growing season, how to duplicate in a dry season?

For me its been a great growing season. I can't believe how much my relatively young plants (e.g. hedges planted between 18 months and 3 years ago) have grown.

They have grown far more than previous seasons, even thought they have been irrigated previously (but this year not at all, so far).

Admittedly my irrigation was a bit hit and miss - not week-day timer to ensure they were watered like clockwork - but they were watered most weeks, once a week, for several hours (using leaky hose).

Should I not be able to get "even better" growth in a sunny, warmer, season with adequate irrigation, or is there more to it than that?

I'd really like to get this amount of growth on all 1, 2 and 3 year old plants in future

 

My feeling too. I've seen it before in "wet" years

Indeed, but that's irrational isn't it? Irrigation and more sun should do an even better job? (assuming no extreme temperatures). There would probably be warmer nights in a sunnier season, so plants would keep growing ...

Being one not to ask for much!! I'd just like to work out, if possible, how to irrigate to get stupendous growth in a sunny season too

 

OK, that's a good place to start.

How do I measure irrigation?

I could place a shallow tray under the drip hose. Lets assume that the tray is Xcm wide (length irrelevant as its along the length of the hose). I measure the depth of the water, in the tray, after an hour's irrigation (say).

Next I decide that my "hedge root area" is Ycm

So I can scale up the width of my drip-tray Xcm to the width of my hedge root Ycm

That will give me "inches of irrigation" across the width of the hedge root (e.g. "per hour of irrigation run-time").

Is that how you see it working too?

So then you are saying I can "scale" that to the rainfall that I would like? We get about 30mm per month on average, so perhaps I aim for a 5x multiple of that (taking your starting point)?

I'm still curious why if I get the irrigation qty and frequency correct I can get the same growth rate as I have had this year, but I agree with you that Irrigation is nothing like as good as Rainfall ... but I dunno why :( :( :(

 

Hmmm ... maybe a single drip-hose along the line of the hedge plants is not enough then, and I need additional "runs" at 1' and 2' from the stems to get a more "even" watering.

I was assuming that if the plants roots are reasonably "down" (rather than all at the surface from frequent, light, irrigation) that soaking the hedge row would get water to the rest of the area [where the roots are] by capillary action. The plants (to use my hedge as an example) are well mulched.

Shiney's paradox maybe?!!

 

No problem just instead of a leaky hose, Put on a Fire Hose full blast 24/7
Along with lots of ICE packs

If you can remember one of your waterbuts from the greenhouse roof filled the full 45gallons overnight continuos rain, then put a length of your leaky hose along the roof, and you will find it has but filled 2.5 gallons so you need 18 times more water out of your leaky hose system simples :-)

Jack McH

 

I've had unusual hedge growth this year too. Whilst the veg has withered/died/been eaten, the hedges have flourished.

Are we missing the CO2 in the leaves factor?

In a hot summer the leaves will close the stomata between 10 & 14.00 hours to prevent water loss, meaning any CO2 is quickly used up & thereby stopping photo synthesis.

As the summer has been pants, the stomata may have remained open, letting the photosynthesis carry on for much of the day. All be it at a reduced rate due to the lack of sunshine but there has been enough infra red getting thru to keep the solar water heating steaming all thru that time.

 

OK ... so my basic sums:

10mm of rain on 10M of hedge, and allowing a 120cm (4') width. (I think this is generous width for a young hedge though). That's 12 litres per Metre.

I water for about 2 hours and my hose delivers a 10L bucket in a minute or so.

(120 minutes * 10 Litres) / 50M [leaky hose length] = 24 litres per Metre.

I doubt that the leaky hose "leaks" as fast as water flows out of the hose(**), but assuming it comes out at half the unrestricted rate I'm putting on about 10mm per 2 hour watering. I do that once or twice a week. Average rainfall here is about 40-60mm a month. So I'm in the right "ballpark" I reckon.

This year we have had 100 - 140mm in each month Apr-July.

(**) I've seen "water timers" that work according to the volume of water delivered, I think I might invest in one of those instead of a "clock" type, then I would know the Litres-per-Metre that I had put on, which would be a better starting point

 

Good point Zigs. What temperature does this occur at?

Reason I ask is that in a good Summer there will be a significant proportion of days that are not "roasting hot" I reckon.

I also think that nights will be warmer, and thus growth can continue at night rather than stall (I'm assuming nights this year have been cooler ...)

Good point. I will check my Solar system and see how many kWh I've had month-on-month compared to previous years.

 

In addition to CO2, what about nitorgen?

I'm sure we've all noticed how there is always a growth spurt after a good thunder storm. Lightning converts nitrogen in the atmosphere into nitrates (the chemistry/physics is over my my head). But we know rain drops pick up all sorts out of the atmosphere as they fall, so rain water is not exactly the same chemical composition as tap water, which has been through all sorts of filtering processes.

 

Interesting - rainfall includes a foliar feed tonic ...

Plants always seem to enjoy the rain, even if its a poxy 0.000001mm its better than when I poured a Litre onto their roots. Maybe that's the reason - stomata-open, foliar-tonic.

Just need to "bottle" that now

I was pondering overnight whether a "spray" of the foliage (late evening, whilst watering say ...) would help.