California was hit by some torrential rain in January. In our last post, we explored how that rain had affected soil moisture. In some cases, the water percolated right through and left the soil dry again. In other cases, the rain filled the soil to field capacity. It all depends on the soil’s water holding capacity.

The rain we get now probably won’t have much of an effect on the coming season. By the time we get shoots pushing, even heavier soils will most likely need some water. That is assuming we don’t get some rain in the early Spring, when it really matters.

Heavy rains can fill ponds as well as underground reserves of water. That’s where winter rain becomes important. Soil moisture in the early part of the season helps establish a canopy. At some point though, you may need to irrigate. It’s hard to do that if you don’t have any water.

Last year Advanced Viticulture started an exciting partnership with The Well Bubbler. This device measures well depth in real-time using a flexible airline (sounding tube) as opposed to a transducer. It can be integrated with most telemetry devices or you can use the Well Bubbler dashboard on its own to set alerts and monitor your well level.

Let’s take a look at what the recent rain did to the well level at different locations.

Here’s a spot where the rain pumped up the static water level from around 155 ft depth to 120 ft.

This is a shallower well. As you can see the water level varies with rainfall starting with the rain we got in October. The January rain caused a big jump in static water level, raising it by almost 35 ft.

It doesn’t hinge solely on depth. Here’s a deeper well that also shows a clear rise in water level with the recent rain. 

Here’s a much deeper well, that is relatively unaffected by the heavy rain. Still, you can see how the water level sinks with heavy use and recovers once the growing season is over.

Read the rest of the article here.

Drought Soil Moisture Well Bubbler Water Management