Hi guys did you try to mulch your trees with seaweed? if so do you wash it before applying it around the trees so that you get rid off the salts or not?

Hi all,
Yesterday, i noticed an interesting thing when i was taking a picture of my soursop seedling (potted and inside my stairs room, in front of a big window - almost a greenhouse) : even though vegetative flushes stopped around october (the seedling didn't lose its leaves), the trunk almost doubled its size. I took a picture of almost the same angle to compare the size of the two trunks :

November 2017 :



February 2018 :



I thought that during dormancy every growth stops, i was pleased to find that the trunk became more sturdy during that period.

Hi guys, I am wondering when do you start seeing the effects of the boost in the growth after using liquid fertilizers : drenching and foliar feeding. Mainly for mango trees, but you can speak in general.
Are we speaking about hours? days? weeks? after the foliar feeding?
Are we speaking about days? weeks? after drenching.

Hi guys,
I had a cherimoya tree last fall in an exchange meeting, i didn't ask the person who gave it to me if it was grafted or not.

Since it is pushing new branches now, as low as 1 inch from the ground till 2 feet high, i was wondering whether the following spot is a grafting point ?

If the tree is grafted, then i imagine that i have to cut off the lower branches. But if it is not a graft point, then could i leave the lowest branche which starts 1 inch from the ground?

Hi guys,
 4 weeks ago,  i pugged my mango tree (kent) which was in ground since august 2015.
Here it was before the pugging. leggy, skinny and high (starting at 5 ft) scaffold branches. Last year I had trouble with stunted growth on them so I drenched it with a mix 5% zinc  5% manganese three times since last autumn.



Last February, Two weeks after a hard cold spell (the coldest of the winter) the leaves showed multiple damage (I think a cocktail of freeze damage, salt burn and may be fungal disease, but I am not sure).



Anyway, at the beginning of march, when I noticed buds breaking all over the scaffold branches, I decided to pug it to a stump at 4 ft high in order to promote healthier and more sturdy scaffold branches.





Here it is now with multiple flush points all over the trunk (above the graft point).





My question is the following : knowing the state of the old (removed) leaves, is there a risk for the new growth to suffer from fungal diseases ? If so should I apply as prevention a systemic  fungicide or sulphur or whatever (i prefer not to, but if i have to i will do it because i don't want to gamble with the scaffold branches)? If so at which state of development can I spray the fungicide?
Weather information to assess the fungal risk : yesterday we had rain, and next week we are expecting 3 or 4 rainy days, the temps are between min 53 F and max 70 F.

Hi guys,
i have these spots which appeared all over my passionfruit vine last week after a cold spell in my region which lasted a week. I assumed it was due to the cold temperatures since the spots are homogenously scattered through the 20 foot wide vine and they appeared suddenly after te cold spell, but i wanted a confirmation from you guys. Thanks in advance.

Hi guys, i have a young cherimoya seedling planted last winter that i want to espalier against a wall, what are the steps that i should follow?
Here is the seedling:

Hi all, i have a young mango tree to which i want to drench chelated iron (eddha 6%).
Is it ok (or better) to drench now (and drench again in the spring)? or should i wait for january/february and do nothing now?

Hi all,
Before i start my topic, i want to close in advance the eternal debate between most vigorous vs weakest seedling as an absolute proof of being the nucellar seedling. I recently read a study on determining the zygotic seedlings for "uba" variety (i presume this can be true for other mango varieties), and the results show that the zygotic seedlings turned out to be the weakest, the intermediate or the strongest, or even non zygotic seedlings, depending on each batch of seeds studied. Here is the link for those of you interested : http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0034-737X2014000500001

Here i come to my question. I planted 3 weeks ago a seed from an egyptian mango (zebda), it is poly, and 3 seedlings showed up :
One of them (the most vigorous) has a little part of the seed stuck to its trunck since it emerged from the soil, it looked like a weird big leaf in the beginning, then i figured out it was a piece of the polyembrionic seed. Is this a good hint that this seedling is a nucellar one produced vegetatively?


The intermediate seedling (in the background in the following picture) looks like it is formed by two seedlings merged by the truncks, is it a hint that they are two clones merged together?



I am not seeking formal identification as it is not a clear issue as we all know, but your opinions interest me on the first and second cases.

Hi all,
My guava tree, planted last september, has its last flush with some dark red spots on the new emerging leaves.



Here is a picture of the whole tree (not all the new leaves display these red spots, the old leaves are healthy)



Is it sunburn marks? (i have two other guavas which are not showing these symptoms). Is it a disease or nutrient deficiency?

I should mention that the tree is growing well since it was planted 11 months ago (this is it when i planted it)

Hi all,
I started mulching my trees a month ago, and i noticed since then the presence of many little frogs (1 inch long), maybe 5 or 6 frogs under each tree which start to jump when i water the trees. I want to act now before they become invasive. Do you have some organic tips to repell them? i read on the net that coffee grounds may be a good repellent, did someone try it?

Hi, i have just received some mangoes from Ivory Coast

The same order but the other face of the mangoes.

Can you help me identify them? Here are some clues i found on the internet about the varieties cultivated in ivory coast to narrow down the possibilities :
"The main cultivars are Amélie, Kent, Keitt, Palmer, Smith, Brooks, Valencia, Early Gold, Ruby, Zill, Spring field, Beverly and Julie.The mango season lasts from march to june. It starts with Amélie and Zill. Then, the variety Kent. Finally, Palmer varieties productions, Keit and Brooks complete season"