See attached soil test results


p.s. the following were add on test results were

organic content was 1.79%

Aluminum 2.29

Copper 0.30

Iron 81.3

Manganese 5.64

Zinc 0.85


The above sample was taken from the citrus plot after regular fertilizing the last few years, soil from un-fertilized nearby soil showed a Magnesium level of 34.3, otherwise very similar overall to the above.

p.s. root stock is not known on this tree, though it is likely a Citrange, not flying dragon

Over the last 2-3 years I have planted six new citrus trees to replace ones that I have lost to freezes over the years, and to augment the variety of citrus I am growing.  Most of these are Satsumas, all are growing in ground on the 8b/9a line in Louisiana, I also have 3 large mature Satsuma trees.  However no matter what I do the leaves on my Meyers lemon are always more pale than any of my other citrus.  I try giving it more fast acting nitrogen, and it greens up some, I try adding epsom salts (soil test show deficiency of Mg, along with just about everything else N,P,K, Cu, only Iron is in normal range in sandy loam soil), I have also tried just feeding it extra 18-9-11 fruit tree fertilizer blend with micros.  Each has made it look somewhat better, with the 18-9-11 fertilizer seeming to overall help the most, though it is still a bit more pale than my other citrus, and it requires frequent (monthly) feeding to keep it this way.  It has grown since being planted, but not nearly as fast as some of the other citrus that were planted at roughly the same time, some of which have went from 2 ft tall to nearly 7 ft tall in under 3 years.

So is this Meyer's just living up to its reputation of being picky and wanting more Nitrogen than other citrus, is there something else I can do, ...?

thanks

This brings up another good question, spray for CLM or don't spray?    In my case CLM  seem to effect less than 10-15% of my in ground  citrus tree leaves regardless of time of year.

Do you want a tree lined driveway, or do you want a hedge?

We ended up hitting 14F with wind blowing at 10+ mph here in western Louisiana last week, I had all my citrus covered with C7 Christmas lights or 250 watt heat lamps under the covers (tarps, sheets, blankets, whatever I could find) on each, which only helped so much.  I am still waiting to see the overall damage, 30-50% leaf drop on most of the trees so far, though with lots of curling dried out leaves still hanging on the trees.  While surveying the damage today I found one of my smaller (3 ft tall) 2nd year in ground Satsumas currently has a total of 4 leaves growing on a limb just above the graft line that look healthy, all other leaves on the tree a showing significant curling, drying, etc.  My meyers and Cara Cara seem to have fared better though the Cara Cara, now about 7 ft tall is showing lots of curling leaves.

Wait well into the spring or summer before giving up on it, I had freeze damage to a large limb on one of my in ground Satsumas a couple of years ago and that limb looked dead until August when it finally started sprouting new growth on about half its length, I am glad I waited to prune it back.

Over the last few weeks thanks to google  I have been reading scans of a variety of older 20th century scholarly works regarding growing citrus, and one of the things I noticed was a significant difference in reports of cold hardiness for various common citrus cultivars.  Not so much the absolute temperature values, but instead their relatively sequence  from most to least cold hardy.    One in particular that I noted, several of these mid 20th century works list Meyer's lemon as being almost as cold hardy as Owari Satsuma, which matches my observation of many people near where I live on the 8b/9a line having mature inground Meyers lemons growing in their yards that get no formal freeze protection yet continue to survive.

All of which leads me to ask, does anyone know of any modern detailed studies on cold hardiness of common citrus cultivars, I know there are many guides published by universities that list the often repeated numbers, but I have to wonder if that is all they really are, since based on comments on this and other web forums there seems to be a dependency in real world observations on cold tolerance of certain types of citrus, particularly Meyers lemons, and certain types of Grapefruit.

Well first off they may not actually both be the same variety of Satsuma even if they came from the same source.  As to the rest, I have 3 mature Satsuma trees (20+ years old), 2 of them planted about 30 feet apart, and the other in a more exposed location on the other side of the house over a hundred feet away,   and each year it seems a different one has the best flavor, though usually it is one of the 2 that are close together that has the best flavor.  My thought is this is based on variation in the growing conditions, amount of shade, exposure to colder winds in winter, etc.

Here in Louisiana we have two main citrus nurseries, until recently my understanding is both used Carrizo as their primary root stock, one of which also sells some dwarf versions on flying dragon.  I have recently learned that one of these nurseries (Saxon Becnel) is now primarily using Kuharski Citrange, which appears to be a Carrizo variant, except on Limes and Kumquats which they grow on C-22, which I believe are incompatible with Carrizo.  There seems to be little information online about Kaharski, and most of it is dated in the last few years.  In my research on this root stock , I noted that about 1/3 of Florida citrus was being grown on this root stock a couple of years ago.

For those of you that grow citrus in ground in marginal climate zones, at what forecast temperatures do you implement active freeze protection?

I live on the 9a/8b line and do the following, my more cold sensitive citrus (Meyer's and Cara Cara) get C7 Christmas lights and covering with a light sheet any time the forecast temperature drops below freezing,  which may be a bit conservative, but all it takes is the forecast to be significantly wrong once to loose them, already once this year we had a forecast calling for a low of 33F and had an actual low of 26F.  My young  more cold hardy Satsuma's get covered when the forecast calls for a low below 25-26, and my large mature Satsumas (12-15 ft tall 15-20 ft wide) only get covered and heat lamps when the forecast calls for temperatures below 20 degrees, which averages being once every 5 years or so.

The smaller trees all have C7 style Christmas lights on them throughout the winter which are plugged into thermo-cube switches that turn on at 35F and off at 45F, which without covering only adds minimal protection, but minimal is better than one.

We finally had sunshine today, so I snapped a photo of the supposed Cara Cara leaves showing the small thorns.  Perhaps someone that is better at leaf identification can confirm what this is, to me it looks like the textbook example of Cara Cara, though personally I can't tell the difference in leaves between Cara Cara, Washington Navel, and Dancy Tangerine in online leaf photos.  I am starting to think this may be mismarked Dancy as the nursery this tree came from also sells Dancy Tangerines, which seem to have very similar leaves, and are noted as being somewhat thorny, though I can't seem to find an image showing leaves and thorns together.

 

I know with certainty that it is grafted on some type of trifoliata based on removal of growth below the graft line in the 2 years since I planted it.  Also based on email with the nursery that grew it, the exact root stock is claimed to be Carrizo, though the exact Citrange may be anyones guess.  The leaves on the tree look correct for a navel orange with winged petioles, though I am no expert at citrus identification by leaf shape, so since it has yet to produce any fruit, it is possible that it may be some other citrus with similar leaf shape that also commonly has thorns.  Though overall the thing that strikes me as odd is that the thorns are a new thing as they almost were certainly not there when I was covering it during freezes the last 2 years, either that or I got very lucky, since I stuck myself with them at least 3 or 4 times while covering and uncovering last week, which is probably the 5th or 6th time since planting it 2 years ago.

Ike

p.s. one note on the thorns they are much shorter than the thorns typically seen on Carrizo (which in my experience has nasty looking long thorns).