Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss Is it going to be another dry year?

Maybe we're not supposed to bale hay this weekend.

Not in this heat! They are calling for 95°F here tomorrow, I'll bet you'd be hitting triple digits!

Three years ago in S.C. Kansas a person could punch in a 40' deep well and get 20gpm, last year it took a 80' well to get 20gpm, this year 120' I all ready have one 40' well sucking air and it's only May…..not good.

I had a customer in the shop yesterday who had spent the morning placing flags on graves for memorial day. He claimed the ground was so hard that the wooden sticks that support the marker flags kept breaking off. He was using a 3/8" steel dowel to pre-punch the hole deep enough to hold the flags up.

Pretty dark outside right now at 10am, also a bit soggy.

Hope it clears up by tomorrow. We have too much water in MI, and it is constantly being recycled -via- Mother Nature in the form of rain.

I just looked at the radar when I came in, and the wet is coming across Lake Michigan going due East from central Wi. Not a drop here. Lots of grassy areas have turned brown already, and I've got streaks where I drove over the grass/dutch clover by the pond last week. The clover in the rest of the grass is wilted, the grass is blue and some of the smaller trees have leaves that are starting to wilt.

A friend had 25 trees transplanted with a tree spade, and while they seem to be doing well now, he'll have to start pouring the water to them if they show signs of stress. They were transplanted 3 weeks ago before the leaves popped out. Most are around 3"-4" DBH. Red/Pin Oaks and Sugar Maples.

Esshup you need to tell your friend not to wait til they are showing signs of stress before he starts watering them or it will be to late. Trees that big with our current weather situations will not be able to recover like they would in a normal year. What he does now is critical to the longevity and long term health of his trees. If he does not water enough the trees (especially the maples) will develope shallow root systems and have difficulty surviving any future drought conditions as well as having roots that will be on or near the surface that can become damaged while mowing,driving over them etc. He has to keep in mind that over fifty percent of the root base of the tree was cut off during the digging process and the tree is not able to take up the water nearly as efficient as an established tree. So if he waits til it shows signs of needing water he is going to be playing catch up and the tree is not able to do that with the shortage of roots. The water leaving the tree under these conditions is far greater than the amount of water the tree can take up through the soil. He needs to give each tree a min of thirty gallons of amended water, slowly so it does not run off, at least once a week until conditions improve. He can go to any lawn and garden store and pick up liquid root stimulator and add to the water. It is not that expensive but it is very effective. The way we do it is to take five gallon buckets and drill 3 small holes in the bottom. Place one at the base of the tree and fill with water, add root stimulator and wait til it is empty then refill again until he has put at least thirty gallons per tree or the ground becomes so saturated it will no longer take any more water. A lot depends on soil type. Down here we have stepped up to fifty gallons per week do to low humidity, no rain, high heat and very porous soil types. Some of our 6-8 inch trees we are watering twice a week. For those we place two buckets under the tree and add bricks to the bottom to keep the buckets from blowing away between uses.

JKB can you check into fedexing some of that down here...

I wish I could!

I am going to take a stab at hitting the property tomorrow morning and see if I can get any work done. It was pretty dismal when I got up at 4am this morning, but I had to finish up a couple details for a weld fixture for a dog and pony show today. It has cleared up a bit, and a bit of blue sky is showing. Looks to be a big system in Wisconsin inching toward me. I hope Lake Michigan takes it out, I have a lot of outside work to do, and so far, my spring vacation plans have been postponed by the boss. That's OK, but he is going to owe me, and I will collect!

Thanks ozarkstriperscom! When the holes were dug then, in the amount of time it took the spade to dig up another tree and move it 150 yds to the hole there was 8" or so of water in the bottom of the hole. I'm sure that's no longer the case - sandy soils. The last 2 weekends he's put 275 gallons of water on the trees each weekend using a tote that I have to hold the water, but it takes 2+ hrs to fill the tote from his well - it's an old shallow well and it ain't working so well........

I'll copy your recommendations and e-mail them to him.

60 percent chance of rain last night when a cold front came through turned up zip for rain here in northeast Indiana. I sure wish it had rained to lay down the grass pollen. I've had serious allergy issues the last few days. OTC allergy meds don't make a difference anymore.

Cecil, ragweed is my nemesis. I found that I have to switch to different OTC meds every year. What worked last year doesn't seem to work this year, etc. Claratin or Allegra seem to be the 2 that work the most consistently.

I recently switched to a CVS brand and it worked quite well. Now not so much. I guess it's time to try another brand.

Don't think it's ragweed yet as it usually comes out later in the summer doesn't it?

Finally got some rain last night. Granted it was not much and did not do anything to fill up the pond but at least I can breathe again. Im new to this allergy thing and dont care much for it at all. Better chance for heavier rains tonight. Keepin my fingers crossed.

Nothing really works that well for me. I just kind of put up with it. Well everything has come early in Oklahoma and the nation has been fairly warm so it is possible that the ragweed pollen is in the air.

Due to our very brief (2 weeks) winter, we have allergies and mosquitoes way ahead of time.

I saw a lightening bug flashing outside the house Sunday night. That's something that happens during the middle of summer, not the end of May!

We started seeing a few June bugs at the end of March.

Garage door open at night with lights on inside = many large and small June bugs inside as of May 15th.