My girlfriend left for Europe today and I was left with her ragged looking little meyer lemon to take care of. There were a few problems that I've corrected, she watered with city water, which is quite hard and leaves a lot behind in the soil, so I flushed it 3 times with a vinegar/water solution. I'm going to start using bottled water (you can't beat 24 bottles for $4, thanks walmart) because I don't know anyone with an RO system in their home. What would an ideal pH be? The next issue was fertilization. She was fertilizing it, but I'm not too sure what she was using, whatever it was, it didn't seem to be working. I went to a local hydroponics store and got a freebie so I thought I'd try the stuff out. The brand name is DNF, it's a two part solution. One is 2-0-2 and the other is 0-1-3 which you combine 2.5ml of each into a liter of water and use weekly. I thought that I had been told in the past that 5-1-3 was an ideal ratio to aim for with potted citrus, so this DNF stuff seems like a lot of K and not enough N... thoughts? Sorry for the crappy cellphone picture, and for some reason when you flip an image on a mac, it doesn't stay flipped even if you saved it that way...
You are right about the 5-1-3 ratio being the best for citrus. There is an Osmocote slow release that is close to the correct ratio. The ideal pH for citrus is around 6.5. You also need to add trace minerals if the fertilizer yu use does not contain trace elements. Skeet
I'll call around for that fertilizer, might take some doing though haha. I'm not too sure how to adjust the pH, I believe that most of the bottled water bought from sprawl-mart is neutral at 7.0, or close to it. I have a small amount of a trace mineral fertilizer that was given to me for free from the same hydroponics store that I got the DNF from. She uses it once every 3 months during the colder months, and every 2 months during the spring/summer.
Of course, it only mankes sense. But I don't have access to a car so when I go out into town I have to take the dreaded metro transit system haha. So if it's something I could buy in town it would make it just that much easier for me bing able to buy it in the same trip as the water. I remember seeing a soil acidifier once before, which could be useful. I'm going to check it out, and if I'm lucky it'll fit the bill. Thanks!
It is easy to tell by looking at the pictures of your girlfriends Meyer Lemon tree, that it is deficient in Magnesium. - Millet
Really? Well it does make sense, looking at pictures of it on the net makes the similarities obvious. I'm sure that the trace mineral fertilizer that we got had Mg in it, but perhaps it was too diluted. There we're any mixing instructions on the container, so we guess. I'll address the trace mineral problem asap, but right now I think I'll just focus on Mg, I think I remember someone saying that using epsom salts is a good way to suppliment plants for Mg deficiencies? I searched the forum and 1 tablespoon per gallon seems to be the correct dosage for foliar application, I'm guessing that it would be ok to use the same dosage for soil amendment maybe once a month?
Today we had a fairly overcast and cool day, so I thought it would be the best time for the foliar application of the Mg solution. I didn't want to mix up a whole gallon of the stuff, so I put a tiny pinch in a 600mL sprayer, which I would think was probably too weak rather then too strong. I sprayed it in the morning and I'm hoping to see improvement over the next week or so. A lot of the new growth on the plant has started to grow at a pleasing rate. All of the new grow looks green and healthy, so even if some of the leaves don't recover, I hope that healthy growth will soon crowd out the old. I'm not sure if its the DNF, or if it's just a better enviroment for it, but nearly 6 days after the initial use I can see improvement. I am wondering if I should expect to see the Mg deficiency fade within a week or so, and if I should add some epsom salts to the lemon's weekly watering/fertilization for next week? I just don't want to burn it.