The Tropical Fruit Forum

A few of my avocadoes are showing similar leaf damage that is concerning me, hoping someone can help me narrow down the cause. Here's what they look like:



I believe these are the potential causes:

• Florida Sun (sun went from feeling nice on your skin to immediately burning your flesh in the last few weeks)
• Seasonal Leaf Turnover (Nishikawa is obviously pushing new growth...Day, though, is not and showing similar symptoms)
• Homemade Compost (could be throwing off the PH, or something like that)
• Bacterial/Fungal issues

NOTE: the photos were all taken with me facing north, damage is primarily on south-facing leaves.

All trees showing damage just now began getting all-day sun, the house is no longer providing mid-day shade due to sun angle. There are a few older trees not quite in the same location not showing same damage, but they shed their old leaves a month ago (they also received some of the same compost).

The compost has been sitting for well over a year and was baked in the sun for several days prior to adding. It was added as a top dressing to all my citrus, mango, avocado trees, other than one small similar spot on a mango leaf.

As to disease, I sadly had no choice but to conclude I have MBBS. I've been in denial for since last season when I noticed damage on my fruit that I told myself was only anthracnose, but I found multiple leaves covered with damage spots looking like this (the leaves with the most prolific damage are all Kent seedlings):


I've never heard Avocadoes can be afflicted with MBBS, but these are only a few feet away from some of the leaves covered in MBBS. If you look closely, especially at the Day (IMG_5430,jpg), the damage is spotty and has something approaching a halo around some of the damage. Maybe/hopefully it's not MBBS crossing over, but could it be anthracnose?

This topic has been moved to Tropical Fruit Discussion.

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This topic has been moved to Tropical Fruit Discussion.

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This topic has been moved to Tropical Fruit Discussion.

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These were labeled as Kaffir Lime seeds, but they do not look anything like what I've seen those seeds/leaves to resemble. There's no citrus smell when the leaves are crushed and they taste more like a lettuce variety.

I lost nearly all my panicles to Powdery Mildew last year so I'm determined to fight it this year. I've bought Bonide's 90% micronized sulfur, planning on mixing 1.5 tbls of it per gallon of water in a small pump sprayer.
I've watched half a dozen (Har) videos on the topic, I understand the general conditions where PM thrives (70's or lower temps, still/dry conditions, paired with high humidity), but I'm left with a few unanswered questions. I think I'm in danger of PM now, need to spray ASAP; hoping someone can fill me in on the questions

• What percentage of humidity should I consider as high? I'm looking at 91% tomorrow overnight, does that qualify?
• I have panicles with open flowers on them currently, is it safe to spray them with sulfur now?
• Does sulfur deter flies/bees/etc.,? I know not to spray when they are active, just curious if they'll avoid recently sprayed flowers.
• Would mixing a nutritional spray in be beneficial/harmful? I have some SouthernAg citrus spray I was thinking of using.

Thanks, anybody!

I made what turned out to be a delicious Indian curry over the weekend; the recipe called for fresh fenugreek leaves which I couldn't find locally, so substituted the fenugreek leaves with celery leaves. In my search to find them locally, I learned fenugreek grows well here in Florida and is also a nitrogen-fixer. Has anybody on here in Florida grown it? Any guesses on how well it would work as a ground cover?

It sounds intriguing, only gets ~2' tall vs pigeon pea and others that get much taller. I really like the idea of using something that has additional benefits, as opposed to something like perennial peanut. The drawbacks I read were it's need for well-draining soil and it has susceptibility to powdery mildew and white flies. Also doesn't sound like it has a very long growing season, so I'll need to work something else in with it to keep the weeds from overtaking the area.

I sadly lost nearly all my flowers and tiny fruit to powdery mildew last year. Planning to use copper sparingly this season to fight that problem.

I only have a few small trees, I definitely don't need even the smallest spray-wand canisters. Can I use any emptied household spray bottle (properly cleaned)? If there're no big issues with that, how long does the copper stay viable once it's been mixed? One last question that just occurred to me, if copper spray does get old/bad/impotent, what's the proper disposal of the mix?

Thanks in advance!

I grafted a Day and Oro Negro scion onto Brogdon rootstocks at the same time earlier this year. They are in the same soil mix and get the same fertilizer regimen. Here's how they both look today (Day is the larger one):

The Day took off compared to the Oro Negro, but it's (established) leaves are now yellowing. I've been feeding them both once a month with 5-2-6 Citrus-Tone (https://www.espoma.com/product/citrus-tone/), which lists it's also intended for use on avocados. I do irrigate off a well, but with all the summer rain, I've been using collected rain water for over a month now. I'm thinking it's a nutritional issue. If it was citrus, I'd guess it could be an iron issue. It has been raining almost every day for over a month; if the soil mix was too wet, I'd expect the Oro Negro to also be yellowing.

I have some 8-3-9 slow release with micros that also says it's for use on mango, avocado, etc.,. I've been thinking about trying some of that and seeing if it corrects the problem.

Does anybody have any diagnosis of what the issue might be?

A small, black spot appeared on my Sweet Tart fruit several weeks ago. There was no fruit above it, so it couldn’t have been sap or something dropping onto it. It was firm/hard to the touch and didn’t seem to be a expanding, so I stopped paying attention to it. After some really heavy rains this week, it now looks like what you see in the pic. It’s gotten bigger, has developed a yellow ring around the black area, and is now soft to the touch. Is this what MBBS looks like?

It's my first season of attempting to graft avocados, using the most reliable technique I know from grafting mangoes for a few seasons, the cleft. This is an Oro Negro scion on Brogdon rootstock. It was grafted exactly 3 weeks ago today. Couldn't get the widths to match up exactly, one side is a little recessed, but there seems to be some healing going on. The numerous mango grafts I attempted at the same time have now all pushed or given up the ghost, so I'm getting anxious about losing the scion. Does this look promising or should I reattempt? With the widths not matching up exactly, should I try a veneer vs another cleft (or something else)?

Thanks!

Finally accepting the fact that I'll have to buy a tree from somewhere licensed in Florida. The hurdles now are finding the variety I want and finding a nursery that sells them. I've only had two varieties of pummelo I liked: one was from a local (dead/gone now) tree, the other is what I can get in Trader Joe's this time of year. The local tree had huge fruit; white flesh, fairly seedy, but with a very pleasant taste (it's been nearly a decade since I last tasted it). The TJ's fruit is pink to red in color, usually seedless, and a good balance of sweet to acid.  I'm sure the TJ fruit comes from CA, guessing it's a Chandler from what I've read. Describing the flavor I'm looking for, I'd say it has to have decent acid, not looking for all sweet. The TJ fruit often reminds me of a very sweet Ruby Red grapefruit. Anybody have suggestions for pummelos like that which do well in Florida?

I haven't found any nurseries in the Sarasota area that carry pummelo. Jene's Tropicals in St Pete lists them on their website, but googling the names of the varieties listed doesn't yield much information. Calling them for more information was a dead end, they didn't even have any in stock. Guessing I'll have to special order a tree, fine with that. I'm also okay with driving a few hours.

Any tips are appreciated!

Trader Joe's carries these delicious Sunkist red pummelos (that's the way they spell it on the fruit sticker) this time of year. They are usually fairly seedless, but the last one I opened was tasty, but also full of seeds. Now I'm thinking about sprouting them, but I realize I know nothing about sprouting citrus. Questions:

• Do pummelo seeds grow true to parent?
• Is it likely that this fruit was just picked late (allowing the seeds to develop) vs the normally relatively seed-free fruit, or should I expect lots of seeds in offspring fruit?
• Will a pummelo tree whose parents were in CA grow well in SW Florida?

Any feedback on the above is very much appreciated!