About 18 years ago, I built a raised bed by about 8-12 inches for each tree to improve the drainage whenever we had El Nino seasons. Glad I did, the recent wet winter would have killed my trees. There’s a dedicated gutter/drain that went between the trees. Making small wells would seem counterintuitive to what I’ve been doing for this orchard for a long time. I don’t need to find more ways to circumvent what has already been acknowledged as a defect–I’m already using flex monthly to apply soak cycles.
Each small hole in my drip line puts out about .5 gallon per hour. Depending on the type of fruit tree, some I install drip lines with more holes (ie citrus, etc) while other fruit types I install drip lines will less holes. I also have a dedicated line that I water into a large container so that I can measure how much water is being put out. I obviously reuse this water for other purposes like container plants or vegetable beds beyond my irrigation’s reach.
This is at my personal home where I can monitor my orchard on a daily basis. After one or two seasons if I’m successful, I hope to deploy a dozen or so Rachio controllers to my commercial properties.