The Tropical Fruit Forum

Citrus => Citrus General Discussion => Topic started by: incubator01 on June 05, 2021, 06:11:25 AM

Title: acclimatising newly purchased citrus
Post by: incubator01 on June 05, 2021, 06:11:25 AM
Based on my previous topic of kumquats dropping leaves, and based on the fact that literally every citrus I bought from nurseries (local ones, planfor in France and oscar tintori) , even though they look really good on arrival, they start dropping leaves after some time, not right away but usually several weeks after repotting.

The cause of the leaves falling off are either winds of 15 - 20 km/h -which is not much but citrus do not like wind, and I place them against a wall, and under a roof when wind is heavier)
But lately the sun is sharp. The weather announcement first said day 1  21°C, the next day 24°C, the next day 28 °C. The wall my plants stand against get morning sun (the sun  rises here around  7 AM but due to neighbours, my plants only get it around 08:30 AM) and the sun disappears from my plants at 14:00 (give or take). However these last 2 hours were apparently a bit too much on the hottest day, most plants held up well, except some including the kumquat which I found weird as its supposed to handle heat.

Now, I don't want this to be a duplicate of the other thread, so mainly I wanted to ask here, is it required, common or best practice to "acclimatise" nursery bought citrus?
And how would I best do this? Especially in the future then I have to go back to work so I can't keep moving them around every hour.
Title: Re: acclimatising newly purchased citrus
Post by: brian on June 05, 2021, 07:41:43 AM
It sounds like your new trees would benefit from being in partial shade for a few weeks.  Either morning sun and afternoon shade, filtered partial shade all day. 
Title: Re: acclimatising newly purchased citrus
Post by: incubator01 on June 05, 2021, 08:04:13 AM
It sounds like your new trees would benefit from being in partial shade for a few weeks.  Either morning sun and afternoon shade, filtered partial shade all day.

Well that was what I was trying to achieve but i think it failed because the sun takes too long to go away, here's attached an image around 09:24 AM

(https://i.postimg.cc/ppFCzsxf/IMG-20210601-092458.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/ppFCzsxf)

So My only resolution would be to move them out of there by noon and into the shady area under the patio roof.
However they then get sun in the evening at 17:00h because it's on the opposite side.

In addition, I read somewhere it would be a good idea to remove all fruit and flowers so the plant can focus on growing, however it is a shame but if it will help then I will remember this in the future.
Title: Re: acclimatising newly purchased citrus
Post by: lebmung on June 07, 2021, 05:43:35 PM
Leaf drop it's always a sign that the roots have problems, unless the leaves are really old, which is not your case. Alemow rootstock recovers well if the temperature is high enough. Maybe put some black plastic garbage bags around your pots with a tape, they will get much hotter and help grow roots, then in winter take them off so that the roots can dry from the terracotta pots.