After the flood...
What does soil moisture look like after two weeks of rain?
In the last couple of months, California has been hit with a lot more water than we’re used to. Here in Sonoma County we’ve had excesses of 18” of rain and that was just since January 1st. Other parts of the state got more. Some parts of the state had like…cars washed into the vineyard too…but that’s for the blooper reel.
The sun has been out for over a week now. Let’s look at how much of that water stayed in the ground. The following charts show relative soil moisture content measured by soil moisture probes.
Location 1:
Here’s a site with a loamy/moderate textured soil. The rain did a good job pumping up the relative water content.
Location 2:
Here’s a site with light texture. This site may have taken on a lot of water, but it rapidly percolated into the deep soil, leaving it as it was prior to the rain.
Here’s a look at the different depth levels.
Location 3:
Here’s a heavy soil texture. Notice that the soil here was already at field capacity thanks to the rain we got in late 2022. It may have gotten a lot of rain, but the soil couldn’t take on anymore.
On closer look, we see that some parts of the soil here hold more water than others.
You always need to consider your soil’s unique water holding capacity. Sometimes this can vary widely within a given site. Locations 2 and 3 in this post for instance are from blocks in the same twenty-acre vineyard. It may have felt like the whole sky fell on us this month, but if you have a lighter-textured or rocky vineyard it means 2023 may have to be managed similarly to the previous two years.
Main photo compliments of Daniel Sinton at Shell Creek Vineyards
