Whenever you irrigate your pecan orchards, there are really five distinct fates for that water. “Fates” probably sounds a bit too ominous, but that’s not the intent—maybe think about this as five different “destinies” or outcomes for the water.Here they are.Fate #1) The applied irrigation water could be taken up by the pecan trees’ roots or by the roots of other desirable plants in the orchard (e.g., cover crops or intercrops). In that event, the vast majority of the water will rather quickly move up the plant stems through the xylem tubes and be transpired to the atmosphere as water vapor out of the microscopic stomata! openings on the leaves. A tiny percentage of that water might be stored in the plant tissues or be used up in biochemical reactions (like photosynthesis) inside the plant cells, but again, the vast majority is transpired out the leaves.
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