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Messages - Isaac-1

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Johnny, what do you consider close spacing?

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Citrus General Discussion / Thorn Proof Gloves?
« on: April 17, 2019, 03:24:31 PM »
Has anyone had any luck with finding Thorn Proof Gloves for picking citrus that actually work, I am particularly interested in thinner gloves made from modern high tech fibbers vs thick leather?

thanks

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Citrus General Discussion / Re: Leggy satsuma mandarin
« on: April 10, 2019, 06:49:15 PM »
I agree, this is one of those rare cases where you should probably trim it back to the point where it is semi-self supporting, and then remove the stake so it can flex and strengthen, citrus wood is far more flexible than most other fruit tree wood.

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Temperate Fruit Discussion / Re: Blueberries
« on: April 05, 2019, 07:25:12 PM »
I would suggest testing pH with a color match test strip or reagent instead of an electronic pH meter, unless you have a recently calibrated lab grade pH meter.

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Citrus General Discussion / Re: Another grafting / topworking question
« on: March 17, 2019, 04:01:43 AM »
Sounds like an interesting project, my only concern is that Louisiana is an ACP quarantine state.

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Citrus General Discussion / Another grafting / topworking question
« on: March 17, 2019, 12:00:44 AM »
I am currently growing about a dozen citrus trees on the 8b / 9a line in Louisiana, most of which are some variety of Satsuma.  Three of the trees are over 20 years old, the rest have been planted over the last 5 years.

One of my 20+ year old trees is in poor condition, it is planted in a more exposed location than the others, was well as in a spot where the soil stays a bit wetter.  I cover my citrus trees and provide them with heat lamps during unusually cold winter weather, and during one of these freeze events a couple of years ago the cover blew off of this one tree during a night where the low temperatures reached about 15F.  This resulted in considerable die back, it lost all its leaves and did not start having any signs of life until the following August with eventual loss of about 1/3 of the tree (the entire northern side).  Since then fruit production on this tree has been light (I would estimate under 100 Satsumas this last season) and growth has been sparse and scraggly, perhaps due to freeze damaged wood.

This leads to consider cutting back at least one of the main trunks and possibly grafting in stems of scion wood from my Miho Satsuma tree which is reportedly one of the most cold hardy varieties.

Any advice you can give on the subject is most welcome, as I have little experience grafting, and no experience grafting citrus.  Also my limited reading suggests that top working is best done on trees under 20 years of age, but I have found no details on this age limit.

thanks

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Citrus General Discussion / Citrus picking, shears, etc?
« on: December 28, 2018, 05:31:35 PM »
Well it is that time of year, harvesting citrus here in Louisiana (Mostly Satsumas).  This year I have been using a set of anvil style pruning shears like these to snip the fruit from the tree.  https://smile.amazon.com/gonicc-Professional-Pruning-GPPS-1001-Effort/dp/B01CULCL62/  Overall I find they are handy, and do an ok job when blindly reaching to cut the stems through the leaves on the Satsuma Trees.  I have one unknown variety of mature Satsuma tree that tends to grow the fruit in bunches father in from the edge of the tree than my other varieties, on this tree these clippers don't work as well as there is less room to reach in between the cluster of fruit to snip the individual stems, so I often end up clipping the whole bunch of 5 or 6 fruit then separating out the individuals from there.   In a good year I may have 2,500 - 3,000 Satsumas to harvest over a 3-8 week time period, so having the right tool for the job helps, probably more as the years go by and my younger lightly producing trees get into their prime, 10 citrus  trees total, though 7 of these are still immature and have been planted over the last 3-4 years and have yielded less than 50 fruit total to date) .

What type do you use, and what do you like / dislike about them?

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Citrus General Discussion / Re: What citrus would you plant?
« on: December 19, 2018, 06:35:55 PM »
It looks like the area around Perth is the equivalent to US growing zones 9b or 10a, I would therefore assume that varieties like Satsumas that require some cool weather to fully sweeten and do best in 9a or even 8b in the US are probably not a good choice.  I also assume that there is relatively low risk of freezing weather there, so you would not be limited to early season fruiting varieties.

Given the above to be accurate, I would likely pick varieties that allowed for prolonged harvest season, for lemon I would probably pick Meyers due to their ability to continuously produce fruit throughout the year, as well as their ability to hold it on the tree for prolonged periods.  For eating oranges, hands down my favorite is Cara Cara, so it must be on the list, for juicing I would probably go with Valencia, on limes I am partial to Key Lime, but this really depends on how you are using them,...

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Citrus General Discussion / Re: Citrus Greening concern?
« on: December 15, 2018, 10:10:58 PM »
I believe this one is Brown Select, I also have 2 mature Owari's as well as young Armstrong Early, Louisiana Early, St Ann's, and a Miho.  The one in the photos matures about a week before my Owari, and has much looser skin.

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Citrus General Discussion / Re: Citrus Greening concern?
« on: December 13, 2018, 09:36:10 PM »
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this, I have looked at the information out there online and in many case evidence of greening does not seem to be clearly defined in the online guides, and there is great variation in the example photos that show greening on fruit.

In my reading on HLB I had missed the tendency of them to turn orange on the top half first, some of my fruit on this one tree are bit green blotchy but tend to favor green on the top half.  My concern was primarily based on this only occurring on the one tree, and not any of my other Satsumas, though each one is a different variety, this one has thicker more pebbly skin and often more pear shaped fruit, it is also usually the least flavorful of my trees, though the one with the largest fruit.

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Citrus General Discussion / Re: Citrus Greening concern?
« on: December 13, 2018, 05:35:21 PM »
Here is representative photo of some harvested fruit


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Citrus General Discussion / Citrus Greening concern?
« on: December 13, 2018, 05:33:02 PM »
Does this look like signs of citrus greening on Satsumas?    The majority of the  fruit on this tree this year has these small green specks, even after several cooler nights with temperatures around or just below freezing the last 2-3 weeks.      There are also the occasional smaller all green somewhat deformed fruit though this accounts for only a small fraction of the  fruit on the tree, maybe 1%


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This is a very biased and one sided article

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Citrus General Discussion / Re: Louisiana Citrus - Video
« on: November 16, 2018, 02:26:50 AM »
Thanks for posting, I am also in Louisiana,  but on the other side of the state, and my Satsumas are also much smaller than normal this year.

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Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: Citrus in the Pacific Northwest
« on: September 30, 2018, 09:49:13 PM »
I have read that optimal citrus growth occurs at around 86F

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Citrus General Discussion / Re: Orange Turns Purple
« on: September 30, 2018, 09:45:37 PM »
So we have questions, but no answers

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Citrus General Discussion / ACP/HLB quarintine imports?
« on: September 23, 2018, 05:54:24 PM »
I am writing to ask if anyone knows what is going on with importing citrus between ACP/HLB quarantine states?

I ask because what I am observing in Louisiana does not match with the limited details I can find posted online.  Louisiana is an ACP/HLB quarantine state, though both have only been detected in the eastern part of the state mostly east of or on the Mississippi river.  Louisiana has only 2 major citrus nurseries, both located in the active quarantine zone, so citrus selection of varieties is limited, particularly since the offerings from these two are nearly identical, with only a little variation in available root stock (one offers flying dragon on limited basis, one does not).

It appears that Louisiana is now allowing importing of citrus, from outside the state, specifically many garden centers in western Louisiana are now stocking trees marked as grown by Saxon Becnels nursery in Orange Texas (Orange is on the state line just across the Sabine river into Texas for those that don't know).  From the little I have been able to find this policy change may be related to the growing nursery being certified to a certain level by the USDA, using isolated greenhouses, positive pressure ventilation, etc.  Something that Saxon Becnel mentioned being the first nursery in Texas to be compliant about in a press release a couple of years ago.  It should be noted that Saxon Becnel also is one of the two nursery operations in the state with its nursery outside of New Orleans in Belle Chase.

Is anyone aware of such things going on with other quarantine states, and may this be a sign of things changing allowing for more open trade of citrus grown under certified controlled conditions between states?

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Citrus General Discussion / Re: Big Jump Forward In Greening Cure?
« on: September 20, 2018, 12:18:24 AM »
While we are talking about HLB, has anyone else read this one https://www.nature.com/articles/s41438-018-0038-x

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Citrus General Discussion / Re: Nitrogen deficiency?
« on: September 18, 2018, 02:46:34 AM »
Do you know your soil pH, it may be an uptake issue

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Citrus General Discussion / Re: Rooting Root Stock?
« on: September 12, 2018, 03:54:25 PM »
TooFarNorth, I agree you probably have low humidity there, at least compared to here in south Louisiana, though compared to Kansas your humidity probably seems like a tropical rainforest.

My goal here is to grow root stock (potentially to get seeds to grow) to potentially propagate more citrus trees for my own use given that I live in an HLB/ACP quarantine zone, though I live 150 miles from the nearest documented cases.      With luck it may never get here given the relatively sparse planting of citrus here on the h8b/9a line, mostly backyard citrus, though there are a few small commercial / u-pick operations 25-30 miles south of here.

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Citrus General Discussion / Rooting Root Stock?
« on: September 07, 2018, 05:46:09 PM »
I have as hoot of trifoliate root stock (Carrizo?)  shooting up on one of my citrus trees, and I was wondering if anyone has had any luck taking root cuttings from such a shoot?  It was about a foot long when I looked at it a few days  ago, may be more now.

thanks Ike

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Citrus General Discussion / Try to save or throw in the towel?
« on: July 05, 2018, 06:15:04 PM »
One of my 3 mature in ground Satsuma trees is not doing so well (I also have  6 more younger 1-3 year  in ground citrus trees, mostly  Satsuma varieties) on th3e 8b/9a line in Louisiana.  This particular tree was planted about 20 years ago and is located about 200  feet from the nearest other citrus, in a more exposed wetter part of the yard.      It has never done as well as its contemporary aged Satsumas, reaching only about 8 ft in height and maybe 10 ft in width. This tree was hit hard with freeze damage 3 years ago and lost the northern third of the tree as well as some limb damage all around, then was hit again with freeze damage this last January even though it was covered and had a heat lamp during our 40 year low with 13F  two nights in a row, this time with only minimal additional dieback but it did loose about 80% of its leaves. In general this tree is looking scraggly, it has leaves and fruit on it, but the foliage is not as dense as it should be, with only about 70% of the leaf density of my other large Satsumas, and maybe 1/3 of the fruit set.

Which brings us to the big question, what should I do, leave it as is, cut it down, prune it back considerably, etc?

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Citrus General Discussion / Re: Pruning in ground citrus?
« on: June 19, 2018, 02:44:32 PM »
Thanks, I will keep that in mind when I do trim these trees back, though even in an off year these trees produce far more fruit than I can use, or give away.  My main concern is to prune them back at a time that will do the least harm.     I don't want to do anything that will increase the chances of damage from freezes, etc.

p.s. matt, I just finished skimming over that link, and their does seem to be some good information there, though given the source a lot of it seems to relate to the California growing environment with much more concern about sun damage than cold damage to trees.

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Citrus General Discussion / Pruning in ground citrus?
« on: June 18, 2018, 10:57:54 PM »
Within the next year I will need to trim / prune a couple of my larger in ground citrus (Satsuma) trees, I live on the 8b/9a line in western Louisiana and have to cover them to protect from occasional hard freezes every couple of years.  We had a 14F freeze 2 nights in a row last January at which point I realized just how much my largest citrus trees had grown since the last time I had to cover them 2-3 years ago.  The largest one is now about 16-18 ft tall, and about 20 feet wide at its widest, making it difficult to cover.  I would like to prune it back to about  12 ft tall and about 15 feet wide as it is now growing into neighboring non-citrus trees.

My question is how and when should I do this, should I wait until after this years fruit are harvested, or winter, spring,  do it in one step or in stages, etc.?

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Citrus General Discussion / Re: what deficiency please?
« on: May 31, 2018, 05:34:48 PM »
As a person that is also dealing with magnesium deficient soil it is important to keep in mind that the correct Ca, Mg, K ratios as they effect the plants  Magnesium absorption see http://www.extension.umn.edu/agriculture/nutrient-management/soil-and-plant-sampling/soil-cation-ratios/ for an introduction into the concept.     To put it another  way simply adding Mg to soil that is also deficient in Ca and K will not solve the Mg deficiency shown in the leaves as the Mg will not be properly absorbed by the plant.

Also see http://www.cannagardening.com/interactions_between_nutrients

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