Sounds like you've got a good handle on things already. Stop fertilizing around mid-summer, then stop watering in late-summer or early fall to encourage trees to harden up and prepare for winter. Once trees are dormant but before the ground freezes, give a good soaking and allow the excess water to drain away before the ground freezes.
-Don

Thanks. Just looking for some confirmation my thoughts weren't way off base. My main concern was whether letting them dry out at this time would hurt them building root reserves for winter, though it really is getting a little late in the season and they should be starting to go dormant anyways.

If your trees are really dry now, then a bit of water certainly would be a good thing ... otherwise, follow Don's good advice.

Terry

Thanks. I always worry about encouraging dormancy by slowing the plants down and maybe preventing them from building up enough root reserves, but at the same time if the trees don't go dormant in time, the eventual blast of cold weather will take them out anyway.

They're not dry currently--watered about a week ago. Have a high volume drip line set up which lets me put 15 gallons or so on each tree in about 1/2 an hour, and I did that weekly over the summer. It seemed to be sufficient as the trees grew quite well compared to prior years when I was hauling water & only gave them 5-10 gallons.

I'll just keep an eye on them that they don't totally dry out.