Millet, Skeeterbug and others. 1rst timer needs some help! This is my first post. Sorry about the length. About three and a half months ago I bought a trovita orange, two golden nugget mandarins, two algerian mandarins and one satsuma mandarin. This is my first time growing and I knew I was to encounter some problems… To start off I’ve been growing under a 400w hps and 250 MH. The room is fully enriched with CO2 around 1600ppm and I’ve also had the luxury of keeping night time temps in the 80’s and humidity about 50-65%. Initially I planted them in one part potting mix to one part perlite. If it makes any difference my plants have been cohabitating with raspberries, blueberries and strawberries. The first three weeks they all did very well, giving me a beautiful and fragrant bloom. Then I started to notice the leaves falling off at an alarming rate. I also noticed a skeleton pattern in the leaves morphology: yellow veins with green but yellowing leaves. Fe deficiency??? I did more research and decided (rightfully) that they needed to be transplanted to Mill’s Coconut husk chip recipe in case they were suffering from root damage. Drainage was now phenomenal (considering I bought the large CHC from the retailer Mill suggested). Nevertheless my trovita orange lost all of it’s leaves. Although I counted him a casualty of war I decided to keep him in the garden. To some degree they have now stabilized… and to my surprise… the last month the trovita has put out a whole new set of leaves, bloomed and is now showing me what I believe to be little tiny oranges where the flowers used to be. In fact, it is now the healthiest plant in the bunch. New leaves are gaining in size, they are dark green and are nicely glossy. But I have a new concern. All my plants aren’t really growing… they seem stunted. Many of the leaves are now curling inward- particularly those on the golden nugget mandarins. I have no clue what this means. Over watering, under watering, leaf miner etc, etc… Today I stuck my hands about four inches into the soil and noticed it to be moist and hot.… almost like it was fermenting. But my trovita orange which has a higher ratio of CHC was definitely on the dryer side of things. Could the other plants just be overwatered and suffering root rot? I don’t know. Maybe this is the problem… maybe not. The plants are in pretty big containers. Please refer to pictures to see the morphology of the leaves. Also, my Satsuma’s leaves are starting to turn yellow. I have a picture of them too. Nitrogen deficiency? I don’t know… this has happened before and I added some magnesium to my nutrient solution and it seemed to help for a couple of weeks. Now I’m scared to add magnesium do to a high salt load (maybe this is the reason of leaf curl in the other plants?). Should I just flush them out with ph adjusted water? If it were a nitrogen deficiency will flushing with water make it worse? What if it’s a root rot problem… Can you see I’m going mad here? Anyways… I’ve sunk a lot of time money and sweat into these guys. Any advice would be appreciated. Always learning and having fun, Sevo
Sevoflurane, first of all let me apologize for taking so long to answer your post. I'm sorry for the delay. Congratulations on obtaining such a nice citrus collection. To answer your questions...... (1)You ask...."I also noticed a skeleton pattern in the leaves morphology: yellow veins with green but yellowing leaves. Fe deficiency???" No this is not an Iron deficiency. The symptoms of an iron deficiency are, leaves with GREEN veins and otherwise a yellow leaf (no green border area around vein). Iron deficiency shows up on NEW leaves. The deficiency symptoms that you describe are from a nitrogen deficiency. Nitrogen deficiency shows symptoms of totally yellow leaves with no variation of color, or when the nitrogen deficiency is less sever yellow-orange veins with some green on the far sides. (2) Citrus appreciate about a 10 degree differential between daytime temperatures and night time temperatures. If your tree is in an 80F daytime temperature, the tree would benefit from a night temperature of around 70F. (3) Looking at the picture of your CHC potting medium, I see you purchased the large 1-inch Coconut chips. When using such a large chip size, I would add more peat moss (or coir) than the traditional 4 to 1 mix. I assume that the water pass through is very rapid, in fact probably much to rapid for the water to thoroughly soak the medium. Is the Gold Nugget Mandarin also in the 1-inch CHC/peat blend? (4) What is the leaf surface temperature on the in-ward curled leaves, that you placed under the 400W High Pressure Sodium light? When a citrus leaf curls it is trying its best to reduce water loss, or stress from excess heat. My guess the problem with the trees that have the curled leaves are two fold. First, the root system was probably some what damaged during the two transplantings and the foliage was not pruned back to match the size of the root system, and the large 1-inch chip medium is draining too fast, thus the medium is not maintaining enough water for the tree's root system. If this is the case, then the trees are in too large of a container. Also, if the HPS lighting is putting out too much heat on the leaf surface, you might move it further away. The perfect leaf temperature for optimum growth is 76-86F. At temperatures at or above 95F a citrus tree completely stops all growth. Lastly, any growth medium that contains a lot of wood (pine, CHC, cedar or other wood chips), requires extra nutrition, as the wood chips absorb a lot of the nitrogen. If I can be of any further assistance, please ask. By the way, you have an amazing set up. Take care, and welcome to citrus growing. - Millet
Millet (and others), First of all; thank you very much for answering my post. I am truly appreciative. Although this is my second post, I have been lurking in the background for a little time and I can definitively say that your input into this forum is a great source for the citrus grower. I am trying to learn as much as I can on my first attempt and I hope you don’t mind all the questions. So I think I had both a nitrogen deficiency and an iron deficiency. I’m wondering if I'm in fact just dealing with different genes (torvita, golden nuggent, Algerian etc…). I might actually have to consider different nutrient requirements. Do specific citrus varieties behave differently given the same nutrient milieu? The first picture is what I believe to be iron deficiency. It belongs to a Satsuma mandarin. The second is what I believe to be nitrogen deficiency (Algerian). Is this what you alluded to your previous post? Are these classic pictures of these deficiencies or am I just fishing for understanding? The last picture wes taken today. About four days ago I gave them liquid iron, magnesium and a soluble load of nitrogen with little phosphorus and potassium. 10-3-3.. this is the same leaf that you see in the first picture. I think all the trees except the trovita (my underdog) responded. I have lost many miniature fruit on my trovita orange. It is still doing great, but now, “all of a sudden” it has lost 60% o the miniscule oranges it was trying to grow… Grrrrrr….. Another reason I am thinking different varieties need different nutrient requirements. What does the growing community think of this issue? Am I just a bad citrus grower?? My temperature differential is not10 degrees but instead about 2 degrees…. How and why does a 10 degree differential benefit the citrus tree? Why not a constant temperature? Oh.. and yes… the golden nugget mandarin is in the same 1”CHC… Again Millet, thank you for your responses… Sevoflurane.
Here is a leaf that has two misterious brown spots.... I've seem others and don't know what to make of them..
Have you added STEM or some other source minerals? I also noted that the leaf in the last picture is without the petiole--if it fell off that way, that is generally a sign of stress of some kind. Epsom salt does not contribute much to the soluble salt problem as it is not highly soluble.
Hey there skeeterbug. Liquid iron has magnesium, boron, copper, iron, manganese and zinc. I use osmocote as my general fertilizer. I also intermittently use dilute liquid formulations that I mix myself to attain a desired NPK ratio (ie. the 10-3-3 I added earlier last week to correct the nitrogen deficiency). You are right. Virutaully all the leafs that have dropped have done so without the petiole. I'm sure my plants have been under stress. I don't know STEM. Is this a good source of micronutrients?
You mention some suspicion that you might be overwatering--it is supposedly hard to overwater if you are using CHC based media unless it had degraded or you added too much peat poss or it has all settled to the bottom--possible with large chunks. If any of these conditions are the case, perhaps you could cause root rot by overwatering. STEM (soluble trace element mix) is a good source of minerals, but commercially it comes in a 25# bag. Occasionally you can find someone on EBAY that is selling it in small lots, but it looks like your mineral source has most of what is needed.
FOLIAR application of iron (Fe) is never recommended due to lack of effectiveness as a foliar spray, and risk of leaf burn. At the very best, foliar sprays of Fe produce a speckled greening of the leaves rather than an overall greening. The most reliable means of correcting citrus Fe chlorosis is by soil application of iron chelates. STEM (Soluble Trace Element Mix) should ONLY be used if the fertilizer program you are currently using does not already contain trace minerals. STEM should not be used if you are already currently applying another forum of trace minerals. The leaf in picture #1 is not an iron deficiency. I believe the leaf in picture #1 has an ARTIFICIAL manganese deficiency, caused by your fertilizer program. The problem with your trees is that your are trying to accomplish to much growth, in to short of time. You are applying Osmocote fertilizer, plus trace mineral sprays, plus water soluble fertilizers, plus 24 hour temperatures, plus high CO2, etc, etc. When macronutrients (Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium) are supplied in relatively high proportions compared with micronutrients (trace minerals) to stimulate growth of NEW citrus trees, extreme depletion of micronutrients develops as a result of marked top growth, and micronutrient deficiencies appear. Therefore, a balance between macronutrients and micronutrients is needed and required. It is never wise to apply trace elements without first KNOWING if indeed a deficiency exists. If the wrong micronutrient is applied (e.g. iron is supplemented when the problem is actually manganese deficiency in the leaf's tissue), then you actually make the deficiency problems worse because of too high levels of one nutrient (e.g. iron) can interfere with uptake of another nutrient (e.g. manganese). The best (and also safest) program for young trees to know and understand the trees problems, BEFORE a "cure" is given. Take care, and good luck to your trees, and to you. - Millet (Joe Sakic #19 Burnaby, British Columbia - Colorado Avalanche hero)
Sevoflurante, just a note concerning your large (1-inch) sized CHC. I suspect that when you water, or fertilize, the water pass through is very rapid. Probably too fast for the CHC to become soaked. You can soak the entire container in a container of water or fertilizer solution (250-300 PPM) to insure that the medium is thoroughly wetted. If you purchased the chips from The Crystal Company of Saint Louis, MO. they have been crushed which cracks the chips. This enables them to readily absorb water. It only takes about a 30-45 seconds soak to accomplish this. Good luck with you trees. - Millet
PPM's can be found on this site, very easy to use. Best of luck. http://www.firstrays.com/fertcalc.htm
I tried the PPM calulator, it is quite easy to use, but not very accruate. I do not like the teaspoon method. I always weight my fertilizers. However, each to his own. - Millet
