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Messages - Isaac-1

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76
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: Insanity on Hardiness tags
« on: September 21, 2016, 10:15:54 PM »
Me too, the trees all had Saxon Becnel tags (probably largest citrus nursery in Louisiana), unfortunately their web site has been down for at least the last few weeks (people have reported it on their facebook page)

77
Cold Hardy Citrus / Insanity on Hardiness tags
« on: September 21, 2016, 05:51:53 PM »
I just dropped by a local retail nursery and was horrified by the hardiness signs they had hanging on their citrus, these were big letter size laser printed signs with the name, price, and hardiness scale at the bottom.  Unfortunately the manager was not in, and I did not think it would do any good to tell the teenager behind the sales counter.

A few examples:

Owari Satsuma zone 10 only

Brown Select Satsuma zone 9 & 10

Blood Oranges zone 6 -10

Hamlin Oranges 7-10

Meyers Lemon 6-10

At first I thought they were simply backwards, but there were a few oddballs thrown in

Note this nursery is along the 9a / 8b line (within a mile or two)

78
Satusumas need a bit of cool weather to turn orange, not sure how much of that there is in SW Florida 9B, Satsuma in 9A sure, 9B?

79
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: Seasonal freezing hours limit.
« on: September 07, 2016, 08:21:22 PM »
Also remember that there are no simple answers, for example I had 4 mature Satsuma trees that were all planted at the same time 15-20 yeas ago, 3 planted in a sheltered location, and one (the smallest) in a less sheltered and somewhat wetter location.  I lost one of them after the cold winter we had 3 or 4 years ago, and it was not he smallest one in the more exposed location.

80
Citrus General Discussion / Re: Louisiana Satsuma / Citrus?
« on: September 04, 2016, 08:17:33 PM »
It is, and while I am not growing it yet, it is on my planting list for this year if I can find a good one at a local nursery (last year the few Brown Selects I found looked sort of like the last picked over christmas trees at the tree lots the night before Christmas).  I planted 5 new citrus trees early last spring, 3 of which were Satsumas (St. Ann, La Early, and Armstrong Early) to complement my 3 mature Satsuma trees (Owari?), and to replace others which had died off during more severe winters the last several years. 

My goal is to get a variety of flavors and spread out the harvest season, as the 3 mature Satsuma trees produce far more fruit than we can use, in fact it was even more than we managed to give away last year.  So part of the appeal of Miho for me is that all reports show it to be a much smaller lower yielding variety that only gets to about half the size of Owari, the fact it is reported to be particularly cold hardy would be nice as well, as I am quickly running out of sheltered locations with good southern exposure and sunlight, and easy access to electricity for heat lamps, but have plenty of good more remote, but less sheltered locations in the yard for more cold hardy trees.

I am doing the same with Non-citrus fruit, I am slowly replacing a number of old, and no longer productive peach trees (staggering this over the next few years so they don't all become old and unproductive at once again), as well as adding more varieties of blueberries to spread out the harvest season, planting of  thornless blackberries as in the past we have always picked native thorny blackerries, and the idea of thornless with much larger fruit is something I find appealing.

81
Citrus General Discussion / Re: Louisiana Satsuma / Citrus?
« on: September 04, 2016, 06:01:03 PM »
Just to follow up here, I contacted Star Nursery, and received an email back saying they were considering offering Miho and to check back with them in about a month when they do their grafting.  I tried checking with Saxon Becnel (the other big citrus nursery in the state), but their web page seems to be broken and just comes up with database errors.

82
Citrus General Discussion / Re: Louisiana Satsuma / Citrus?
« on: September 02, 2016, 08:30:21 PM »
Do they have some varieties that I are not listed on their product pages?, because the only Satsuma varieties I see listed there that have been released in the last 20 years are the already mentioned St Anns and LA Early

83
Citrus General Discussion / Louisiana Satsuma / Citrus?
« on: September 02, 2016, 10:34:13 AM »
Does anyone know of a legal Louisiana source for any of the newer interesting Satsuma or other cold hardy citrus varieties?  The only varieties that have been released in the last 20 years that I can find here are St Ann's and Louisiana Early.

Ike

84
Citrus General Discussion / Re: Move to Facebook
« on: May 15, 2016, 08:26:26 AM »
Please don't I HATE facebook groups

85
Citrus General Discussion / Re: Leaf color on in ground citrus?
« on: May 11, 2016, 01:47:17 PM »
I think I have it figured out, Magnesium and maybe Copper deficiency, The soil reports for all the surrounding  agricultural fields showed  Magnesium to be low to medium, and Copper to be low to very low.  So  I tried adding Epsom salt to nearby grass and it slightly greened up,   I added some for the citrus and it also greened up some.      Next I plan to apply a light amount of copper fungacide and see if that helps.     If this does help short term, my long term plan is Dolomite lime, I just have to find a local source, as soil pH is on the low end for citrus (5.7 -5.8).

86
Citrus General Discussion / Leaf color on in ground citrus?
« on: May 02, 2016, 09:45:16 PM »
I planted 5 new citrus trees this year in Louisiana on the zone 8b/9a line, to replace and augment a few that have been lost in harsh winters the last several years.  I have 3 mature Owari Satsumas all over 9-10 ft tall and at least that wide.  The new trees are a Meyers Lemon, along with a Cara Cara Orange, and 3 new early Satsuma varieties, Armstrong Early, St. Ann's and La Early.  Things are going mostly well with them I have been fertilizing all the Satsuma's the same with quality citrus fertilizer, and giving the Meyers lemon extra Nitrogen, the Meyers did take a hit from a late season freeze though and lost all its leaves a few weeks after being planted in Feb.  but has bounced back now.  My issue is with one of the Satsumas  (it is either the La Early of the St. Ann, the tags got confused so I am not sure which of those two is which, but think it is the St Ann).  The leaves on this one tree are uniformly lighter green than the any of the other trees, adding rapid absorbing nitrogen like blood meal does not change this.  There are not splotches, or yellowing, they just are not as dark of green as my other young citrus, or my mature Satsuma trees.  All trees are in similar soil in reasonably close proximity to each other, in fact the pale one is in the middle of the row with darker green ones on 3 sides.

So my question is, is there something else I should do, or is this a common trait of either of these varieties?

Ike

p.s. On a side note the Cara Cara seems to be much more sensitive to conditions than the Satsumas, it is the first to show signs of needing watering, or getting too much water (I have only watered them 2 or 3 times this spring as we have been getting fairly regular rainfall rarely going over 4 or 5 days without rain).

87
Cold Hardy Citrus / Re: New citrus for 8b/9a
« on: April 25, 2016, 09:51:45 PM »
The Owari Satsumas I have are all over 15 years old and have survived down to the upper teens with no added cold protection (power outage before I had a standby generator), although I do try to cover them and provide work lights or christmas lights for heat.  I am not sure if this will be practical much longer as the largest one is about 15 feet tall and about 18 feet wide.  I have however lost a couple of others during similar freezes so there is a bit of a dice roll when they were not protected, most recently during the cold winter we had 2 years ago.

88
Temperate Fruit Discussion / Re: The Official "Blueberry Tree" thread.
« on: April 25, 2016, 07:01:50 PM »
I may be a bit late, but I too would like to try one of your blueberries, I live in west central Louisiana on the 8b / 9a line, the native soil here is acceptable, if not exactly perfect for blueberries (I have a couple of bushes that are over 20 years old growing in native soil with no additional fertilizer for most of those years, native soil pH is around 5.7-5.8 )

Ike

89
Cold Hardy Citrus / New citrus for 8b/9a
« on: April 25, 2016, 05:41:38 PM »
I live in west central Louisiana along the 8b/9a zone line, and I am looking to expand my citrus varieties, in fact I have already started.  I have 3 mature Owari Satsuma trees, only  2 are good producers though, in addition I have added a myers lemon (near an electrical service so I can keep it warm with Christmas lights during freezes), along with  3 more early season Satsumas (La Early, St Ann, and Armstrong Early, the Armstrong was the first one planted out of the set)       Most recently I added a Cara Cara Orange which I also suspect will need some protection in the colder months.      Ideally I would like to add something to expand my citrus harvest season into the spring, but I just don't know what to try, Perhaps Tahoe Gold or Shasta Gold, there seems to be some mixed information out there on their cold tolerance though, then of course there is  finding a supplier that will ship to Louisiana.       If anyone has any suggestion I would love to hear them, as it seems most discussion on cold hardy citrus is about pushing the boundaries of edible citrus as far north as possible, not about more moderate varieties in traditional fringe areas like where I live about 100 miles inland from the coast.

thanks Ike

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