My Meyer lemon is still in its original small pot.  I plan to leave it there mainly because I grafted it on Flying Dragon rootstock which dwarfs about 40%.  Tree is about 7 years old and still a runt, but bears really heavy.

That Meyer tree looks excellent with all that fruit and green plumage.  I have 13+ citrus trees on dwarf rootstock that I mail ordered about a month before I got the RBII.  I potted them all up into ~5G nursery pots.  They came in small 4"x9" slot containers.  I'll probably give them a season in untreated pots before transplanting into RBII expandable containers.  My 5-6 year old citrus are planted in large 40-50-gal food-grade plastic wine barrels cut to leave three-quarters of the barrel intact.  The trees did great until they became root-bound.  They're so root bound now that water has a way of just passing through the pot top-to-bottom.  So I have to water them with 1" buried drip soaker hoses every couple hours when it's hot outside to keep them from drying out.  If I had a tractor, I'd lift the trees out, root-prune them, and then re-pot in expandable containers.

To document everything I'm doing for these young avocado trees, I want to post a little bit about the beneficial bacteria/fungi tea that I've just brewed.  I used to purchase high-quality, deep forest compost (or use home-grown worm-castings) in AACT (Actively Aerated Compost Tea) brews.  Lately, I've just been using off-the-shelf products "fed" and aerated in my aeration barrel.  Here's what the setup looks like:


Brewing Tea:


For this time around, I started with a couple Tablespoons of Humic Acid Powder and a bit of the MycoGrow product mixed in (no carbs).



Actually, I started with an overnight aeration run of my 30G of tap water; then another overnight with the above.  I then added a bit of the Extreme Azos and Great White product along with some molasses (~1/3 cup).  This gives the beneficial bacteria something on which to feed.



I didn't choose these products for any particular reason.  They're just what I had in my cabinet from years past.  They're pretty old now, but they still seem to have some life in them.  I wonder if the race diversity will suffer due to their age??  After the first night brewing, I took an unstained pic @40x under the microscope, and I saw probably about 10% of dots in this capture moving.


After a second night with the additional products mentioned above (and carbs), I'd say 90% of the screen was abuzz in this pic.  I'm going to soil drench and maybe spray as a foliar with the reserves.  This should help with disease resistance and nutrient uptake.  It always has in the past from what I gathered with A-B tomato plant comparisons.

This is very cool!  Only thing that bothers me is you might be boxing yourself in and encroaching on your neighbor when they grow thick. 

What's the sun exposure during the growing season?

Recommendations:

1.  Establish and maintain a 4-6" mulch.  Fine, white feeder roots will establish themselves on top of the soil under the mulch.

2.  Apply a slow release encapsulated food.  Polyon is the best based on design.  Am running out, finding it hard to get so I bought this which has a great term, NPK and micro package and is "dirt" cheap. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GTDGMHC/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

3. If it's not too late innoculate the root system with VAM using a soil drench over the rootball.  If you've followed my post you know I'm not an organic purist and can't stand all the "organic and natural" products being hyped.  This is a good product with no trichoderma (which can actually interfere with the fungi colonization).
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00YCD88C8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Here's a perpendicular system you might check out by the U. of Georgia.   I just planted a peach tree and will probably run the axis in line with the strong south winds we have.   It's quite close in profile to the Japanese profile.

http://extension.uga.edu/publications/detail.html?number=C878&title=Simple%20Tree%20Training%20Technique%20for%20Peaches

Good luck!

Hi Mark,

I tried to leave room for mulch in the pots, but at only 17" tall, I was reticent to limit the vertical grow media too much since I have a "bottom" on these pots.  Also, over time, I've noticed that potted trees have a way of settling or sinking a couple inches.  I do have 2-4" for mulch.  I've been using pine-needles, and when I pull them back, I can see those feeder roots.  I wish that all were 100% white and healthy, but with weeks of rain this past month, I think they were getting a bit over-watered.  I see brown rot mixed in with the whites.

If you zoom in, you might see some of that in my pic below.  You might also see the little yellow balls, which come from that Osmocote Plus that just arrived from Amazon yesterday.  I beat you to the punch on that one.

I've been an avid tomato gardener for 20 years now, so I have cabinets full of various mycos and inoculants.  I amended the grow media/soil with some of these and worm-castings from my indoor bin and coffee grinds, etc.  I normally do a soil-drench with compost tea + Mycos at transplant, but it was late the other night and I forgot.  I could give VAM a try.  That one I haven't used before.  Why do you write "if it's not too late?"  Why would it be too late?

I enjoyed reading about the perpendicular V system in that UoG paper.  I have peaches too, and again limited row space, so that might work well for me there too.

Thanks for all the tips!

I'm actually trying a similar project. I just put them in a cedar wood box without a bottom. Hopefully I can train them (espalier) with proper pruning. It's Sir Prize, Queen, and Lamb Hass. Sir Prize and Lamb Hass are currently flowering.

Hi alangr-

I think your trees have a much better chance of success as you have them laid out (as compared to my own setup) for the following reasons:
1) You have more space both tree-to-tree and it looks like the other side of your house wall there is a drive way with a good amount of room for growth, should you need it.  I'm really cramped where I'm setup.
2) You are in SoCal, with weather more appropriate for these sub-tropical trees.
3) I'm limiting my tap-root with several layers of weed barrier, but you are allowing the trees to root down.  I think that's the key difference with our setups.  I will have to fully support the limbs of the trees to help right the tree and keep it from listing over.
4) It looks like you're planting next to a large white wall for wind protection and added thermal barrier (possibly).  If it's south-facing, you'll receive loads of light.  I will have far less light exposure with my positioning, which will probably affect the fruiting potential of these trees.

So you're going to have healthy robust trees I think.  One thing that jumps out looking at your pics is the wood-box barrier.  I wonder if in the more medium term you'd be better removing that or expanding the boundary to provide more room for feeder roots and surface mulching.  Something to consider.

Thanks for posting your setup.  Please send another post once you've got the trellis setup (espalier).  I'd like to see how you prune to make that effective.
-naysen

Did you cut holes out under the pots?

Hi Seanny, no, I did not cut holes below the pot.  It's not so much that my soil is garbage or undesirable below the RBII pots, but rather it's that I'm trying to follow the greenhouse ideas of Dr. Yonemoto.  The idea is to minimize the tap-root to reduce trunk and branch girth/vigor and focus on feeder-roots and fruiting.  If I were going for permanent, full grown trees, I think letting the roots tap down would be best, particularly in my cooler 9B climate.  I'm trying something else.

Hi Mark (and anyone else interested in another user of RB pots), I created a thread for documenting my RootBuilder project.  If you'd like to follow it, you can find it here:
http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=27629.0

This is nothing like what you have with the Greenhouse in Texas, but it might be useful for anyone else considering taking the plunge in purchasing a roll of the RootBuilder product.  At any rate, thanks for the input so far.

Is that a Duke avocado tree?  It's not only huge but gorgeous.

Yes, two beautiful, soulful Duke Avocado trees growing together in an old, abandoned train-station "garden."  I'm told they are incredibly hard to get a graft to take.  I'd love to have a couple of these growing in my front-yard.  That's a long term goal.

Great choices.  That's a lot of work regarding winter protection.   Stewart would not need to be protected once it's thick and woody.

I know that protecting the trees from wind and cold will be my primary challenge.  The past several Winters have been particularly mild in Northern CA, however this Winter has reminded me of the unpredictability of weather.  We had a week or two in the mid-70's (F)/ Lows in the mid-50's before getting hit with a week long freeze down to 18F, and then another;  Hail, all of it.  Given this, my large consternation is over the counter goals of creating a big, woody tree to help protect against the elements as opposed to the John Yonemoto process that seeks to achieve the opposite by limiting tap roots to reduce girth and vigor in the tree's trunk/branches as well as using supports -- all to focus energy to fruiting.  Will those greenhouse concepts work outdoors in a "pot-culture?"

Quote from: z_willus_d on March 14, 2018, 02:24:12 PM

$240 to ship two rolls to CA.  Ouch!

Huh?  $40 from Alabama to central Texas, one roll.

Shipping turned out to be more reasonable.  UPS had $96 to ship two of the [RBII17H, 17" X 96 Panels RootBuilder II] rolls to CA, so that's not too far off from the $40 you had.  I should be set for a while.

One curiosity I had was around what the actual size of each panel is.  Apparently a 100' roll is made up of 96 panels, so does that mean the length of each panel comes out to just above a foot at 12.5", or are each panel exactly 17" x 12".

For the bottoms, I'm contemplating running cement pavers atop the 4foot-wide dirt run on the West by SouthWest facing 50' area shown in the below pics.  I think I can fit six trees in individual RBII expandable containers using 8' spacing and applying the John Yoshimi Yonemoto process.  I think the pavers migh provide some temp buffer in the cold months while also blocking roots from the neighbor's trees (and limiting the Avocado tree tap-roots).  I might run a trellis above down the line to support the horizontal branches.  Hopefully the spacing isn't too cramped, light exposure too low, nor wind/cold-temps exposure too great.  At any rate, I don't want to hijack your topic here further, but I do appreciate the inputs.  If folks are interested, I can post on my progress.  I think this is along the lines of projects performed by at least one or two other folks on the forum, though I haven't seen anything like this done as far north as Sacramento Valley.

Quote from: z_willus_d on March 13, 2018, 03:51:07 PM

Hi Mark, I'm about to make a RootBuilderII purchase of the 100' rolls.  I mean to use it on the side of my house (as you can view here: http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=27042.msg312313#msg312313).  I haven't yet decided whether to block the bottom of the pot (no in ground roots) or allow root penetration (up/down).  The reason I would want to disallow below surface rooting are:
1) I might want to relocate these trees in the mid-term future.
2) The neighbor has three well established fruit trees, and I don't want those roots "feeding" into my rootbuilder soil
3) I had several trees in the area that I recently pulled up, and their roots are overrunning the sub-surface.

I'd love to hear what folks think about blocking the roots at the ground surface.

Another choice point I have.  I can purchase the double-height (34") Root-Builder roll.  This is double the cost, but it might work better if I were to block the surface off.  It would also give me more room to create a mulching layer.  Thoughts?

BTW, working with a local Hydro store, I was able to get the Wholesale pricing for these ($250/roll standard height).  Something to consider if others are looking to purchase in bulk.

Thanks,
Naysen

3M makes an product, I forget the exact name. Its the one used by Dr Yonnemoto (Japanese greenhouse mangos) for keeping the roots from penetrating. I believe I posted the name on the forum a few years ago.  It's similar to tyvek but I think its thicker. If In a pinch I would use tyvek.

Thanks for the note.  I see products that might be similar on Amazon (search "tree root shield"), though they are somewhat expensive.  The larger question I have is as to whether or not limiting the roots in such a way will be detrimental to Avocado tree growth, even if I limit trees with heavy pruning, dwarf variety, etc.  Another option I've read used with Fig is to drill one or two large holes in the root barrier, which allows a tap root that can easily be cut if/when moving the above ground "containered" plant.

Hello,

I'm relatively new to the hobby of growing Avocado trees, though I have some years caring for various other citrus, stone, and veggies.  Right now, I have three avocado trees in large ~45-gal containers that I purchased from Four Wind Growers) 3+ years back.  You can see them in my pics below, left-to-right: Mexicola, Fuerte, and Bacon.  The latter two set a few fruit last year, however in the heat of our 110F Sacramento summer, all fruit dropped.  I tried to maintain an even water-level in the well-draining soil.

I now have six new #5 Avocado trees, purchased from the local Green Acres Nursery (from Four Winds Growers).  These are 2x Holiday, 2x Lamb-Hass, 1x Pinkerton, and 1x Sir Prize.  I want to plant these trees in some kind of future transportable solution along the south-west side of my house.  You can see that space in the last two pics I posted below.  I checked temps in this space compared to the rest of my backyard, and the in-between fence-house location seems to be ~4-deg F warmer.  I was thinking I might plant one of the above threes every 6-8 feet, and top the tree to keep them low.  Having read Mark's Thread:
http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=7511.msg266615#msg266615

I thought I might try out the RootBuilder II expandable container solution that Mark is using, but I am having trouble sourcing the wholesale rolls.  I'm not sure if I should allow the bottom to remain open to the soil below, given I plan to relocate these trees sometime in the medium term future.  What's worse, constraining the tap-root at the bottom or cutting it sometime in the future??  Another thought I had was to plant a couple trees in one of my large raised bed/retaining wall structures (see pics 1/2).  These would be permanent I think.

For the potted plants, I was thinking to use freeze cloth covering and C7 lighting for times like we've had here recently with lows in 18F and multi sub-32F nights.  I'm not sure if folks have other solutions that have worked better for protection short of a full greenhouse.  You can see some of the new trees in the 6th pick.  I have them living under a freeze cloth these past couple weeks.  So basically, I'm just putting out a call for any help, and/or advice from you Avocado experts, particularly any that have been successful with container-culture and in colder zones.  I'll do just about anything to make this a success.  Also, are there any of you in the area?  I'd love to commiserate with like-minded "arboriculturists."  Finally, do any of you know of a good northern CA nursery to obtain ready (already grafted) less common varieties, such as GEM and so many others that pique my interest for their flavor or cold hardiness (or both)?  Are there any group buys in the works this season?

Thanks in advance and I look forward to hearing from you all!
-naysen