Hey all, I'm glad I found this forum. I live on the coast of Georgia in the US and the Home Depot was selling Citrus Trees this past spring. I picked up a 1 gallon bucket, each of Persian Lime, Lisbon Lemon, Kuquat(can't remember what kind), Key Lime and Naval Orange. They're all doing well growth wise. My key Lime and my Kuquat are both flowering. So far the Kumquat has gone through 2 cycles of flowering, starting fruit and then they dry up and fall off the tree at about the size of a sunflower seed. These are all very young trees and I'm wondering if I should pinch these flowers or allow it to continue this. They've all showed great signs of growth and I'm not too worried about fruit until they mature. Any suggestions would be great! thanks.
In most cases about 98% of all citrus flowers and fruit will drop. There is a possibility that inadaquate water can increase fruit and flower drop during the first month or 2 after bloom, so if you have been letting it get as dry as it can between waterings, you might want to increase the water frequency a little during the post bloom period.
thanks Skeeter, Actually I have an irrigation system at home and have been watering every day. I've changed it to every other day as all 5 trees have curled up end leaves. I think they may be getting too much water.
Watering every day would be too much water for citrus-- the result is the same thing as too little water--except the tree dies a lot quicker. When you overwater, you kill the roots--without roots the tree can't get enough water and it shows symptoms of too little water. If you keep watering every day the tree will die. When I suggested a little more water in the post bloom period, I mean like once a week during that time (Mar-to mid June) if there has been no rain. Outside that period, my trees often go several weeks without water -- in the middle of summer--and we have sandy soil! It could already be too late, but since your tree has lost roots, you can't just stop watering. You will have to challange the tree to grow some new roots by letting it dry out some, but keep it moist enough to keep it from dying-- Good Luck.
I should add, that young trees probably need to be watered every 3 to 5 days in your climate until they are established in the ground. Once established, inground trees need very little extra water, except during droughts and to help them keep a little more fruit, during the post bloom period. We have not had rain in almost 3 weeks, I watered my lemon tree yesterday-- the first time I have watered it this year--it is about 12 ft tall. I have watered other younger trees with fruit, once a week this spring if it did not rain.
thanks again Skeeter, Citrus is totally new to me. I have all of them potted in very loose well drained soil/peat moss mix with rock in the bottom of the 25 gallon containers. When I first bought them, I had them located where the yard irrigation didn't water them and I almost lost the Kumquat to too little watering. I had to cut off about 50% of the green to keep it from totally drying out and dieing. I'll pull back on the watering and see how they do. Should I cut off the parts that are beginning to wilt to allow the branches closer to the root ball to get more of the water? We're hitting 94-96 degrees in the middle of the day with heat indexes in the low 100s. everything that isn't irrigated on a daily or every other day basis is brown and dead around here.
Mid 90's are not difficult temperatures for Citrus trees. Putting rock in the bottom of a container to "improve" drainage, actually does the opposite, the reason being it raises the perched water table higher into the container. You better keep an eye on a 25-gallon container that contains a mixture of peatmoss and soil (dirt), even though that combination is presently well draining, it readily compacts with each watering. I would not be cutting anything off of your trees unless you have confirmed that it is dead. Certainly, because a branch is wilting is not a reason to remove it. Take care and the best to your trees. - Millet
I mistakenly assumed that your trees were in the ground since you are in an area where they should do well in the ground. Moving up from 1 gal to 25 gal containers is not a good idea. I know you think you are doing your trees a favor, but you are increasing the probability of killing them from too much water. The recommended size increase for container citrus is to increase the pot size no more that 2 inches. When you increase it more, there is a larger area inside the container that does not dry out between watering and that increases the chance of root rot. In addition, the potting media needs to be chunky with lots of air space. I use 4 parts pine bark nuggets to 1 part peat moss or potting soil. Too much peat moss will hold too much water. I would suggest repotting in smaller containers and check for root rot when you do. If you find soft spongy brown roots, trim them off.
thanks to the both of you, I'll look at repotting these trees this weekend. I may just pull them out of the pots, use a smaller pot inside of the bigger one and just fill the rest with decorative stone to hold it in, thus reducing the amount of soil around the root ball and removing the chance for rotting out what roots are left.
