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Citrus General Discussion / Problems with growing citrus trees indoors under LED grow lights
« on: March 21, 2019, 12:59:47 AM »
Hi,
I'm growing several types of dwarf citrus trees in my grow tent during the winter (a. Long with other types of plants) under 2 LED lights and experiencing some problems. First, the types of trees are Meyer lemon (2), kaffir lime, bears lime, and Australian lime.
The problems I'm experiencing are pretty much the same for all the trees (except for the Australian lime which is newer) - - leaves are looking bleached and mottled, nothing like the way a nitrogen deficiency looks, and the texture of the leaves is no longer smooth but rather coarse and rough. None of the trees had these problems before going into the grow tent and I'm fairly certain the problem is related to the grow lights. The thing that's really puzzling me is I have the lights further away than they should need to be and other full-sun plants like avocado, fig trees, birch tree (don't ask) are all fine. For those of you familiar with PAR light meters, I have an apogee quantum flux meter which is giving me readings of around 250 umols around the top of the plant canopy. Direct sun measures in the range of 800-2000 umols, and I have other plants closer to the light with no ill effects. Also, I should mention that I run the lights 18 hours on / 6 off. Anyone know if this is too little rest time for citrus trees?
I will post pics of the leaves soon but have visual impairments using computers so doing this without my eyes and having my wife help me later to post the pics (also please pardon any weird spellings, etc). I should also mention the one of the Meyer lemon lost 3 leaves and they all had light brown or yellow spots on them. I'm not even going into my whole regimen of fertilization, etc, because I highly doubt this is a nutrient / micronutrients issue as it would be a weird coincidence if everything went to hell at the same time when they were all fine before. I'm very conscientious with watering, meaning I only water when it's needed and I've got several ways of figuring this out (bamboo skewers, how the soil feels, container weight, etc). Humidity is always around 60% and temperature is around 80 degrees. Airflow is good, with internal fan circulating and intake replenishing air several times per hour.
I should also mention that the LED's are the newest technology on LED on chip, which produces mostly red / blue light with some infra-red and uv light thrown in for good measure. One of my biggest concerns is whether citrus might react different to this spectrum combo than other plants do. Anyway, sorry for the rambling post, part of the problem with using this software to use computers / phones is I have to write from memory and can't really revise.
Thanks in advance,
Frank
I'm growing several types of dwarf citrus trees in my grow tent during the winter (a. Long with other types of plants) under 2 LED lights and experiencing some problems. First, the types of trees are Meyer lemon (2), kaffir lime, bears lime, and Australian lime.
The problems I'm experiencing are pretty much the same for all the trees (except for the Australian lime which is newer) - - leaves are looking bleached and mottled, nothing like the way a nitrogen deficiency looks, and the texture of the leaves is no longer smooth but rather coarse and rough. None of the trees had these problems before going into the grow tent and I'm fairly certain the problem is related to the grow lights. The thing that's really puzzling me is I have the lights further away than they should need to be and other full-sun plants like avocado, fig trees, birch tree (don't ask) are all fine. For those of you familiar with PAR light meters, I have an apogee quantum flux meter which is giving me readings of around 250 umols around the top of the plant canopy. Direct sun measures in the range of 800-2000 umols, and I have other plants closer to the light with no ill effects. Also, I should mention that I run the lights 18 hours on / 6 off. Anyone know if this is too little rest time for citrus trees?
I will post pics of the leaves soon but have visual impairments using computers so doing this without my eyes and having my wife help me later to post the pics (also please pardon any weird spellings, etc). I should also mention the one of the Meyer lemon lost 3 leaves and they all had light brown or yellow spots on them. I'm not even going into my whole regimen of fertilization, etc, because I highly doubt this is a nutrient / micronutrients issue as it would be a weird coincidence if everything went to hell at the same time when they were all fine before. I'm very conscientious with watering, meaning I only water when it's needed and I've got several ways of figuring this out (bamboo skewers, how the soil feels, container weight, etc). Humidity is always around 60% and temperature is around 80 degrees. Airflow is good, with internal fan circulating and intake replenishing air several times per hour.
I should also mention that the LED's are the newest technology on LED on chip, which produces mostly red / blue light with some infra-red and uv light thrown in for good measure. One of my biggest concerns is whether citrus might react different to this spectrum combo than other plants do. Anyway, sorry for the rambling post, part of the problem with using this software to use computers / phones is I have to write from memory and can't really revise.
Thanks in advance,
Frank