The storms tracked south and east.

Seed went in on 4–5 July. In the sixteen days since, our own ground has caught essentially nothing — one brief shower of a few minutes. The radar-plus-gauge estimate over Krum itself is only about 0.45 in for the whole window, and the Denton gauge eight miles southeast logged 0.13 in. The heavy rain — the one-and-a-half to three inches from the 12–13 July complex — all fell twenty to thirty-five miles south and east, in the Fort Worth and McKinney direction. That is real rain we can see on the radar loops, but it is too far away to call "ours." So the honest question the trial answers is narrower and fairer: if the little that passed over Krum had actually landed on our fields, what would it have done — and how far short of proper irrigation does it fall?

Everything held at full input.

Both new treatments are carved out of Section 2 — 100% fertiliser, 100% microbes, our best-case fertility. Holding fertiliser and microbes at full rate across all three water regimes means any difference we photograph and weigh at harvest is driven by water alone. Section 2 already carries all three varieties across its 90 ft width, so each water treatment automatically spans King Gee 2, Woongarra and Yuma. We keep the original 0/0 Control section (Section 9) as the whole-block baseline.

The three regimes bracket cleanly: Control (≈0) < Rain-simulated (≈0.45 in total so far, barely 0.2 in/wk — whatever passes over Krum) < Irrigated (≈1.5–2.0 in/wk of managed water). The gap between B and C is itself a result — with the Krum rain this light, it should show that the rain we missed would not have been enough on its own, and that proper irrigation is what carries the crop.

Two strips, held to the low end.

Take Section 2's 16 ft depth and split it into three bands running the full 90 ft: a 2 ft irrigated strip, a 2 ft rain-simulated strip, and the remaining 12 ft left as rain-fed control. That is 2 + 2 + 12 = 16 ft, no space wasted. Each strip is just 180 sq ft (60 sq ft of each variety), small enough to hand-water from a hose in minutes.

Why the low (east) end and why together: the block dips to the east, so anything we apply migrates downslope. Keeping the strips as one contiguous band with runoff exiting east into the buffer protects the 12 ft control and the neighbouring sections. Apply slowly — see calibration — so we soak in rather than "cut a river."

Watering to demand.

The conversion is fixed: 1 inch of water on 1 sq ft = 0.623 gallons, so one inch across a 180 sq ft strip is 112 gallons (about 1.25 gal per running foot). Peak-summer reference ET here runs about 0.26 in/day ≈ 1.8 in/week. The crop is young with a sparse canopy, so its current demand is lower, but the soil profile is bone-dry and needs rebuilding — so we set a working target of 1.5 in/week now, rising toward full ET (≈2.0 in/week) as the canopy closes in August.

Splitting the week. Don't dump 1.5 in at once on dry, sloped ground. Break the 168 gal into several soaks so each stays at or under 0.5 in:

Recommendation: run daily light soaks (~24 gal) for the first 5–7 days to re-wet the profile without runoff, then settle into 3 ×/week at 56 gal. Re-check the target each week against the crop and the forecast — if measurable rain falls on the whole block, subtract it from that week's irrigation.

Replaying the rain that passed over.

This strip is not on a fixed schedule — it mirrors the rain that actually fell over Krum but missed our specific fields. From the radar+gauge record at the farm's coordinates, that is about 0.45 in = 50 gallons per strip since planting, in four small hits. Each was light enough to put on in a single pass, so the catch-up is easy — and the fact that it is this small is part of the finding.

Going forward: put a rain gauge at the farm. Each time rain shows over Krum that our own gauge missed, apply that same depth to the rain-sim strip only (0.623 gal × 180 = 112 gal per inch). If a storm actually hits the whole block, the rain-sim strip needs nothing extra — it already got it. Pick one reference (your own gauge, or the Krum radar estimate) and stick with it so the record is consistent.

From gallons to minutes on the hose.

Calibrate once, as discussed: put the spray nozzle into a 5-gallon bucket, run it, and time how long it takes to reach a gallon (or to fill the 5-gal bucket, then divide by five). That gives your flow in gallons per minute. Then for any job: minutes = gallons ÷ gpm. A deliberately throttled spray of ~1 gpm soaks in without cutting channels on the slope; open it up if runoff isn't a problem.

Per-variety timing is one-third of the strip figure (each variety is 60 of the 180 sq ft). Walk the nozzle slowly and evenly along the 90 ft; if you see water starting to run, pause and let it soak. Because the strip runs downhill to the east, start each pass at the low (Yuma) end and work back up so the whole strip wets before any water collects at the bottom.