The current drought conditions faced by California will impact the agricultural industry. Annual precipitation, snowpack, and reservoir conditions are well below average for this time of the year. Although there is some rain in the forecast, future rain and snowfall amounts are hard to predict. Furthermore, spring storms tend to come in warmer temperatures, leading to more rain but less snow at lower elevations. Although we cannot control the weather, there are things we can do to improve the use of water resources. These practices will improve the use efficiency of on-farm water resources. They also include strategies to help capture more water from spring rain events. Lastly, implementing practices now will provide on-farm data for future mitigation strategies as the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) comes into full enforcement. Start timing. Most farm operations begin to irrigate too early. This occurs even in low rainfall years. Stem water potential (SWP) or other plant-based monitoring systems are strongly recommended to help determine start timings in the spring. With SWP, recommendations are to wait to at least 2 bars more negative than baseline (remember, SWP is read in negative numbers). This will most likely lead to an irrigation timing around early- to mid-April, depending on leaf-out date. A study demonstrating this method was established in a ‘Butte’/’Padre’ located near Delhi, CA in a very sandy soil. The trial was established in the drought year of 2014-2015 and continued through 2017. Within this study, the delayed start to the irrigation did not impact yield in comparison to the grower standard. The dates for the first irrigation were between April 22nd – 26th, for all three years. Since ‘Butte’ and ‘Padre’ are later leafing cultivars, I suspect that ‘Nonpareil’ and other earlier leafing cultivars will be 1-2 weeks earlier. This delay saved between