TY - JOUR AU - Schwankl, Larry J. AU - Edstrom, John P. AU - Hopmans, Jan W. AU - Andreu, Luis AU - Koumanov, Kouman S. TI - Microsprinklers wet larger soil volume; boost almond yield, tree growth JF - California Agriculture JO - Calif Agr Y1 - 1999/03/01 VL - 53 IS - 2 SP - 39 EP - 43 PB - University of California Agriculture and Nature Resources SN - 0008-0845 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.3733/ca.v053n02p39 L3 - 10.3733/ca.v053n02p39 AB - In the Arbuckle area of the Sacramento Valley, a 22-acre orchard was planted in 1990 with four almond varieties (‘Nonpareil’, ‘Butte’, ‘Carmel’ and ‘Monterey’). The orchard was irrigated with three types of microirrigation — surface drip, subsurface drip and microsprinklers. The orchard soils are 3 to 4 feet of gravelly, loamy sand overlaying a restricting clay layer. The coarse-textured soil with its low water-holding capacity allows little lateral movement of water from the microirrigation emission device. Under these soil conditions, microsprinkler-irrigated trees produced larger almond yields and showed greater tree growth. In addition, irrigation system evaluations show that all three microirrigation systems provide excellent irrigation uniformity levels after 8 years of operation with only routine maintenance.