I am in Yuma, Az and I have a mandarin tree that is planted in a container outside. About a month ago all of the leaves started turning yellow and falling off so I recently reported the tree and I was wondering if anyone could tell me if it looked like there was any sign of root rot or not.
Usually, the tiny hair-like rootlets are the first to go, and they are slimy and the whole thing smells bad, as though they are rotting. Your's look pretty good from here. In the future, smell the drain water. Healthy soil smells OK, and water logged does not.
Ok thank you I had read the leaves falling off could be the change in temperature we've had but I read it could be the roots too so I thought I would check
I hesitate to speak to the leaves falling because I don't know your climate or situation. Outside, tucked into an inside SW facing corner, or in a courtyard is a different micro-climate than out in the middle of the yard. Heat and light reflected from walls close-by can be better than horizon-to-horizon sun in cooler situations. Lots of tropicals are ~evergreen~, sort of, in that they don't lose their leaves, in their own range, until the time that they are growing a new batch. They lose the older, interior leaves at the same time that they are extending the tips of branches and growing essentially a whole new canopy. Leaves last more than a year, but not much longer. They always look green, but do look a little ragged at the end of the quiet period. Evergreen is really a not a good term term to apply to anything without needles or scales. (I accept that people will shoot holes in that generality.) Anyway, in its own range, the quiet period is not announced as emphatically for trees with persistent leaves as for those at the edges of its range. There are very few places without a quiet period in weather. I think Hawaii is one. Winter in the temperate zones is cold in addition to dryer with shorter photoperiods and less intense sunlight. Deciduous trees still lose all their leaves in areas where the temperatures don't get cold, and tropicals grown at the edges of their range do, too. The dry season replaces winter as the quiet period in places like India. Trees lose their leaves to protect the individual from growing conditions not suitable for the species, so you can say that your Mandarin doesn't like Yuma in short photo periods, lower sun intensities and lower temperatures (but I assume outdoors, overnight ?). Indoors in a sunny, south or west window, I suspect it would be happy and only gift you with one or two dropped leaves a day until ~late March when it would start the new growth season. Lots of tropicals wake up in the dumpster after a new owner thinks they have killed a tree just because it loses its leaves when they bring it into the house. They look around inside the dumpster and say to themselves, "... I just fell asleep and they treated me like I was dead..."
