Maine Wild Blueberry Irrigation Information

Hello everybody. Throughout the 2009 growing season, I will be posting estimates of wild blueberry daily water use (ET) and precipitation totals for 5 sites throughout Down East, Maine. The estimates of water use given below were calculated from weather data using the Penman-Montieth reference evapotranspiration equation, with the resulting values adjusted for wild blueberry. In all cases the values are given in inches of water per day or week. Because there was generally ample rain for the first two weeks of May, those values are given on a weekly basis for illustration purposes. From this point in the growing season on, values of ET and rain will be given for each day to allow growers the ability to monitor soil water deficits as they occur. This blog will be updated 2-3 times a week. It is important to realize that the ET values given here are estimates only, and that soil properties strongly influence soil water availability (see Wild Blueberry Fact Sheet 631 http://www.wildblueberries.maine.edu/PDF/Production/631.pdf).

Machias Newport Ellsworth Waldoboro Deblois
ET rain ET rain ET rain ET rain ET rain
WEEK OF:
May 1-7 0.45 0.34 0.58 1.14 0.56 1.28 0.50 1.33 0.60 0.56

May 8-14 0.58 1.01 0.68 0.91 0.69 0.88 0.57 0.78 0.71 0.58

DAILY
May 15 0.09 0.02 0.11 0 0.11 0.01 0.09 0.01 0.12 0.02
May 16 0.08 0 0.11 0 0.10 0 0.07 0.01 0.11 0
May 17 0.08 2.13 0.09 0.31 0.09 0.87 0.08 0.66 0.09 0.36
May 18 0.06 0.12 0.07 0 0.07 0 0.06 0 0.08 0.03
May 19 0.09 0.01 0.11 0 0.09 0 0.09 0 0.11 0

Tensiometers are being installed in fields near Cherryfield and Jonesboro today, and information from these instruments will be posted here on a biweekly basis as a means of supplementing the data above.