Author Topic: Bad year for late season citrus in Texas near Houston  (Read 3376 times)

mrtexas

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Bad year for late season citrus in Texas near Houston
« on: January 16, 2018, 05:59:06 PM »
Looks like another bad year for late season citrus fruit here near Sugar Land,TX. It is predicted
freezing temperatures for 20 hours with a low of 20F. That is bad enough to freeze late season
fruit. I guess I won't get any good seville oranges for marmalade again. Same thing last year.
Garbage can is covering a coonti. Another garbage can covers my young white sapote.

Untitled by philip sauber, on Flickr
« Last Edit: January 16, 2018, 07:37:17 PM by mrtexas »

Millet

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Re: Bad year for late season citrus in Texas near Houston
« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2018, 06:19:27 PM »
Phil, that same storm came through here (Colorado) two days ago.  We had a low of -4F.  Today it was sunny with a high of 31-F, and tomorrow should be around 55F. Sorry about your crop.  I have a Seville sour orange that has quite a few fruit on it.  Could you post once again your recipe how to make it.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2018, 06:21:35 PM by Millet »

mrtexas

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Re: Bad year for late season citrus in Texas near Houston
« Reply #2 on: January 16, 2018, 07:12:16 PM »
Phil, that same storm came through here (Colorado) two days ago.  We had a low of -4F.  Today it was sunny with a high of 31-F, and tomorrow should be around 55F. Sorry about your crop.  I have a Seville sour orange that has quite a few fruit on it.  Could you post once again your recipe how to make it.

I could post it but you wouldn't have the industrial pectin I use. Just get a package of grocery store
pectin and follow their recipe.  https://mrtexascitrus.weebly.com/marmalade.html
« Last Edit: January 16, 2018, 07:38:42 PM by mrtexas »

ThangBom321

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Re: Bad year for late season citrus in Texas near Houston
« Reply #3 on: January 16, 2018, 07:24:51 PM »
Oh yes! It got really cold here in Spring Tx. I made me a small snowman with what we got on the porch. I hope the few plants I have under the tarp with 1 single 40watt bulb survive. They are all fairly young and in pots. The few in the garage are doing fine under the LED grow light. But yes, it got cold.

Thangbom

Isaac-1

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Re: Bad year for late season citrus in Texas near Houston
« Reply #4 on: January 16, 2018, 08:39:08 PM »
Here across the state line in southwest Louisiana we have a forecast low of 14F tonight, and 18F tomorrow night, my citrus is covered with heat lamps / C7 christmas lights, I just hope it is enough, the covers were coated with ice by early afternoon today.

TRI433

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Re: Bad year for late season citrus in Texas near Houston
« Reply #5 on: January 17, 2018, 05:53:35 PM »
I wonder how my oid citrus plants  faired in this freeze and will probably never know because we sold the property.  The low temperature there was 17F this morning, the lowest temperature in more than 20 years!   I planted those citrus plants in April 1999.  Here south of Miami Florida the temperature is still mild with a high 73 F today but colder weather is coming.

GardenScientist

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Re: Bad year for late season citrus in Texas near Houston
« Reply #6 on: January 23, 2018, 08:07:03 AM »
How did your trees fair with the cold mrtexas? I have my citrus in containers so they were moved into the garage for the coldest days but I see a number of satsumas in our area that look like they came through OK.

mrtexas

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Re: Bad year for late season citrus in Texas near Houston
« Reply #7 on: January 23, 2018, 06:43:53 PM »
How did your trees fair with the cold mrtexas? I have my citrus in containers so they were moved into the garage for the coldest days but I see a number of satsumas in our area that look like they came through OK.

A few trees with some leaves lost. The most lost on sour orange rootstock. No damage on satsumas.

Sugarcane52

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Re: Bad year for late season citrus in Texas near Houston
« Reply #8 on: January 24, 2018, 10:13:17 AM »
A friend of mine in Pensacola had 18 degrees. His oranges were still good after the freeze. He irrigated BEFORE the freeze. This MAY have helped. We had 20 degrees and grapefruit that I sampled yesterday were fine.
Question: how do grapefruit trees on Flying Dragon perform?

mrtexas

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Re: Bad year for late season citrus in Texas near Houston
« Reply #9 on: January 24, 2018, 02:38:49 PM »
A friend of mine in Pensacola had 18 degrees. His oranges were still good after the freeze. He irrigated BEFORE the freeze. This MAY have helped. We had 20 degrees and grapefruit that I sampled yesterday were fine.
Question: how do grapefruit trees on Flying Dragon perform?

Fine they get to 8-10 feet

Isaac-1

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Re: Bad year for late season citrus in Texas near Houston
« Reply #10 on: January 24, 2018, 07:16:07 PM »
We ended up hitting 14F with wind blowing at 10+ mph here in western Louisiana last week, I had all my citrus covered with C7 Christmas lights or 250 watt heat lamps under the covers (tarps, sheets, blankets, whatever I could find) on each, which only helped so much.  I am still waiting to see the overall damage, 30-50% leaf drop on most of the trees so far, though with lots of curling dried out leaves still hanging on the trees.  While surveying the damage today I found one of my smaller (3 ft tall) 2nd year in ground Satsumas currently has a total of 4 leaves growing on a limb just above the graft line that look healthy, all other leaves on the tree a showing significant curling, drying, etc.  My meyers and Cara Cara seem to have fared better though the Cara Cara, now about 7 ft tall is showing lots of curling leaves.

mrtexas

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Re: Bad year for late season citrus in Texas near Houston
« Reply #11 on: January 24, 2018, 09:49:41 PM »
We ended up hitting 14F with wind blowing at 10+ mph here in western Louisiana last week, I had all my citrus covered with C7 Christmas lights or 250 watt heat lamps under the covers (tarps, sheets, blankets, whatever I could find) on each, which only helped so much.  I am still waiting to see the overall damage, 30-50% leaf drop on most of the trees so far, though with lots of curling dried out leaves still hanging on the trees.  While surveying the damage today I found one of my smaller (3 ft tall) 2nd year in ground Satsumas currently has a total of 4 leaves growing on a limb just above the graft line that look healthy, all other leaves on the tree a showing significant curling, drying, etc.  My meyers and Cara Cara seem to have fared better though the Cara Cara, now about 7 ft tall is showing lots of curling leaves.

14F is zone 8a. Where are you located?

countryboy1981

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Re: Bad year for late season citrus in Texas near Houston
« Reply #12 on: January 24, 2018, 10:09:53 PM »
Hit 16 degrees one night and 17 the next.  I believe all survived above the mounded dirt with only leaf loss and small twig dieback including red grapefruit, navel, and minneola tangelo.  I didnt offer any protection other than mounding dirt above graft line to ensure scion survival and hosing the ground with water prior to midnight to have add a little extra warmth. 

Isaac-1

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Re: Bad year for late season citrus in Texas near Houston
« Reply #13 on: January 24, 2018, 10:48:27 PM »
I am just a few miles north of the 9a/8b line in western Louisiana, our all time record low here is 13F set in the 1940's

Tom

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Re: Bad year for late season citrus in Texas near Houston
« Reply #14 on: February 02, 2018, 10:17:11 AM »
I had a few leaves turn brown but for the most part everything came through better than I hoped. I had 4 inground citrus covered with frost cloth and used 4 strings of c9 old fashioned incandescent Christmas tree lights up and down the row. I did not go around each tree individually. I checked on the lights several times during the extended cold spell. One day I realized at least one string of lights had blown a tiny fuse in the plug of the string. I was so upset I really don’t remember if it affected 1 or 2 strings. The wind had caused the wire to twist at the plug and the tiny fuse popped. I got that fixed pretty easy and was replacing some burned out bulbs when I popped another fuse !

All that to set up my remarks for Isaac-1, how do you use the 250 watt bulbs ? I think each string of c9 bulbs is 175 watts and I like how the heat is spread around instead of being more isolated on one spot. Could some of your leaves been damaged by too much heat during the day ? That’s assuming you left everything on during the day. I left everything on because it stayed mighty cold most days too !

I am so ready for this winter to be over. It has been tough and it’s just now February. I was just reading that Valentine’s Day is a great time to start fertilizer. They said even though still too cold the fertilizer will not work immediately in cold temps but it will be available when temps warm up. I get it but that scares
me !

I’m seriously considering the possibility of doing an imadacloripide , Merit or similar, drench about then to try killing citrus leaf miners and any other leaf eating or sucking insects.

Tom