Watering fruit trees

Question

We have a wide range of trees, orange, tangerine, avocado, guava, etc. , all a minimum of 18 years old in the San Diego foothills. I would have to move the sprinkler three times per tree to get an even watering, so I ran PCV pipe up the center of each tree with a sprinkler on top and now I can water two trees at the same time with the water circling the entire tree (just like rain). HERE’S MY QUESTION: my neighbor says it’s not good for the trees to water them in this manner because the roots will stay on the surface and the tree will fall over in high winds. As old as these trees are that just doesn’t sound right to me. What’s your opinion?

Answer 1

If they were very young trees, he might be right but not at the age of your trees. With adequate rainfall, the trees would start putting out deeper routes. The best thing is to try and water for longer periods of time less often. The experts say about one inch per week. Place cans at different places and when the water measures about one inch in the bottam you should be good to go.