Scientists with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, looking for ways that growers can save water without affecting fruit quality or yields, see potential for using deficit irrigation on early season California peach trees. Their research includes development of a tool that can tell farmers precisely when irrigation is needed. USDA researchers Drs. James Ayars and Dong Wang collaborated in a project studying regulated deficit irrigation in peach trees and the use of infrared temperature sensors to measure plant stress. Ayars’s deficit irrigation work is completed, but Wang is continuing his work to test the infrared sensors in irrigation scheduling of […]