The Tropical Fruit Forum

so my brother in-law trimmed the lower portion of his citrus trees a few years ago. He has a young boy and didn't want low-hanging branches with spines... He asked me why they weren't producing oranges anymore. I took a closer look for the first time.

 

They are now like 15 ft tall (2 trees). How do I break it to him?  Should I propose cutting the tops off and re-grafting higher up? Maybe chest height (?)



you can see the trimmed trunk in the middle... I think that was an important trunk.    He did this to both trees. My guess is the rootstock suckers was already taller than the orange tree when he went to trim it.





the foliage of the remaining trunks.

I have a few citrus trees in the yard I planned this spring. Several have leaves turning yellow.
One is a blood orange (pictured below)... the photo is a couple of weeks ago - now some of the leaves on the top of the plant are dropping. The yellowing started occurring as it got cooler out (Nov i think is when i noticed it).  I'm thinking it is a nutrient issue... but i'm afraid to fertilize in winter. I stopped fertilizing in Sept/Early Oct. There are also two mandarines that are showing signs similar, but not as bad. A 4th tree ( Hamlin orange) doesn't really show symptoms like this. We do get strong north winds as I'm near a bay on the gulf but haven't really dipped below freezing this year (yet). I have not tested soil (haven't had soil issues with any plants/trees), but the trees performed great during the summer with regular citrus-specific fertalizer.

Long story short, we were hit HARD by Sally. No body saw it coming this hard for our area until it was too late.

I live in a two story apartment on a Bayou outside of Pensacola. We woke up at 4 am and moved all our belongings upstairs... Peak storm surge was around 10am. We also own a lot of land with a shed and (70% complete) garden house (IG @homeonstilts). We plan to build a home on pilings on the lot very soon.

The apartment took on 14 inches of water, the shed 16 inches, and the new garden house had 3 ft of water in it.

The garden house is still under construction, but I've built it as sturdy as I could with mostly 4 x 4 lumber. It framing stood up well structurally, but the doors ripped off in the storm surge (like most people's ground level garage doors in the area) and all the plants on the ground level and 1st level shelf dissappeared with the surge.

Lost:
Half a dozen citrus trees in planters (tangerines, lemon, red navals)
Half a dozen citrus rootstock seedlings
Two young Pecan trees
Two young Persimmon trees
Two young Avacado trees
One young lychee tree
1 small banana tree
~100 air-layered propogated muscadine vines (have about 25 that survived).

12 jackfruit seedlings
6 citrus rootstock seedlings
12 lychee seedlings
6 avacado seedlings

various pots, trays, gardening supplies... in all 80% of the plants in the garden house were pretty much lost.

Survivors: Recovered 2 heavily damaged 7 gal citrus trees (one was half a mile down the street!) and a 10 gal joey avacado.

Many damaged trees that will hopefully recover (several citrus, joey avacado, plum, apples, pears, figs, guavas, blueberries, blackberries, pecan)
In-ground muscadine vines largely OK.

Other items lost: various power tools, electric mower, and trimmer that were low in the shed. and our 5 year old Hyundai Santa Fe got flooded.

All in all, we didn't lose a ton. All of it is replaceable. Many neighbors faired worse. One positive is that we discovered our gardenhouse is structurally (cat 2) hurricane resistant. but anything left on ground level is fairgame as hurricane fodder.

IMAGES:

BEFORE




This was a few days before it hit. We were working on it as normal. Moving dirt around the base.


Inside after we finished the brick floor a few weeks ago.

DURING


Outside of my apartment


You can see 3 ft of water in the greenhouse in the distance

AFTER


Most plants gone. Plants on the second shelf survived (mostly air-layered muscadines). Joey avacodo tree didn't move far and had already been moved back inside.


found my potting table in the woods about 1/3 mile away



in front of my apartment