Summer irrigation is challenging. Water use of mature almond trees is the highest of the season, with an average evapotranspiration being around 2.00 acre inches of water use per week during June and July for most of the San Joaquin valley. This doesn’t consider distribution uniformity problems as well as any high heat events that may occur, which may require increased water applications. During this period, it is common to see stressed trees. This is frequently due to the lack of or improper calculation of evapotranspiration (ETc) leading to under-irrigation. It may also be due to an under-performing irrigation system leading to poor distribution uniformity, in which some areas are getting over-irrigated while others are under-irrigated. Lastly, and sometimes surprisingly, poorly designed systems are commonly observed which aren’t able to meet the tree’s demand for the water in the summer.  This is due to miscalculation or variable well/pump flows, too low of application which requires long pump times, or general poor design that limits water flows (i.e. reduced pipe sizes to save money). Some stress during this period is okay. Mild water stress that occurs at the onset of hull-split has been shown to increase the uniformity (or ‘evenness’) of hull-split. Sometimes, especially in fine textured soils with high water holding capacities, this application of deficit irrigation can be applied earlier in June to draw down levels of stored soil moisture. In these cases, careful monitoring of tree stress through the use of a pressure chamber should occur. Water reductions should start in range of a 10-20% reduction. When trees reach a mid-day stem water potential (SWP) of 2-3 bars more negative than baseline, near-to-full irrigation should resume to reduce tree stress. As hull-split begins (~1% hullsplit, or when blanks split) AND there is a desire to reduce hull-rot, water