The Tropical Fruit Forum

How much have you been spraying “ copper sulphate”? Could be a toxic build up in your soil. Copper sulphate is no good fororganisms in the soil.

Just enough to wet all the leaves and fruit, about once ever 1-2 weeks for the past few months.  It's a small tree so it really doesn't take much.

I'm wondering why my leaves are going brown like this.  The new growth looks fine for a while then they get chewed by bugs and eventually start turning brown from the tips on up.  I did have problems with anthracnose last year and I've been spraying with copper fungicide about once a week.  This seems to be a year-round problem and it happens to my Sweet Tart as well but not as bad.  This tree is small and has been in the ground for about 3 years now.

I just harvested my first pineapple from a store bought pineapple top.  It's obviously much much smaller than the original pineapple (4.5 inches) with a really nice healthy looking top.  If I re-plant this top will the fruit be even smaller than the fruit I just harvested?  Will the fruit keep getting smaller and smaller the more you re-plant successive generations of tops?

These bananas started busting out of the flower stalk on May 12 so it has been well over 4 months.  As you can see they have plumped out nicely but are only about 3" -3 1/2" long.  Is the stalk ready to be cut or should I give them some more time?

5 gal Wurtz planted about a month ago in SW FL.  It was looking great for the first 3 weeks or so then I left on a business trip for a week.  When I got home I looked at it and it looked wilted, like it didn't get enough water. I asked my wife what was up and she said we had been getting soaking rains most days so that didn't make sense.  I stuck my finger in the soil and it felt moist.  At any rate, I watered it for a good long time last night.  This morning it looks exactly the same.

It's weird. It looks like a plant looks when it hasn't gotten any water.  No bugs that I can see.  No leaves falling off.  No spots on the leaves.  Everything looks good but dry, but it's obviously not a lack of moisture.

Any thoughts on what might be going on?  Root disease? 

spray it now

Suggestions for type/brand of spray I should use?

Should I be spraying the plant now or just wait till the trees flower again?

OK, thanks for the helpful info everybody.  Pineislander is right, our winter has been very very dry and Feb has been very warm.  On top of it all I discovered about 6 weeks ago that the sprinklers weren't running in the zone where those trees are.  I don't know how long that was the case but I realized it when the grass was getting browner than I was expecting.  Next year I'll take care to be sure those trees get more water if it's super dry again.

Quote from: bbates123 on February 25, 2018, 07:26:51 AM

Quote from: Squam256 on February 24, 2018, 05:25:24 PM

Are you watering the trees?

I'm not directly watering the trees but they're getting water from the lawn irrigation which goes off twice a week.

Probably insufficient.

So in other words, mango trees don't like our typical dry Florida winters and will benefit from extra irrigation above and beyond typical lawn watering?  Many of my neighbors have large healthy looking mango trees that I know for certain don't get extra irrigation.  Is it more important when they're young?

I live in the Ft Myers region and I have a Pickering and a Sweet Tart that have been planted for a little over a year now. The sweet tart started blooming in late November and the Pickering in early December.  Both of them produced quite a bit of blossoms, but the majority of the blossoms wound up turning brown and dying.  They both have a few small fruit that survived the dying blossoms. The sweet tart has a few fruit about the size of half dollars and the pickering has a few that are more like peas at this point.  I'm not too concerned because I know I'm really not supposed to let these trees fruit yet anyhow.  I'm just wondering if the dying blossoms are a sign of other issues that I need to be concerned about.

Bought a papaya last spring from a local reputable grower (no idea what kind).  I live in Ft Myers FL.  I see them growing all around here like weeds so I didn't think they were a high maintenance plant.  The plant was about 5ft tall and had lots of healthy green leaves when I planted it.  I planted it in an area that gets irrigation twice a week.  Full sun.  As the spring and then the summer went on it started to lose leaves from the bottom, then through the summer it lost more and more leaves until just a few remained at the very top.  Eventually this fall those dropped as well and then the plant died.  Any thoughts on what might have happened?

Just thought I'd try one more time to see if anybody had thoughts on when I can expect to see ripe fruit considering blooming in late November.

I live in SW FL and although I'm new to this it sure looks like my sweet tart is setting blooms already as of last week.  Does that seem right?  I thought this tree typically bears pickable fruit in June/July.