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Topics - z_willus_d

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Citrus General Discussion / Citrus 2020 (potted)
« on: November 08, 2020, 12:53:50 PM »
My citrus are all blushing orange what feels like earlier than usual this year (9B Sacramento area).  How's everyone else's crops progressing this season?



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I have three several year old Avocado trees growing in large food-grade barrels cut three-quarters up.  Leaves on the trees almost always (regardless of season) look a pale unsightly color that ranges from brown (dying) to yellow to lime-yellow-green.  The pics here what the plants look like at their best, which ain't that good.  I've contemplated reasons for the leaf heath, considering the containers and root-binding, relatively cool temperatures in the winter season (though these are cool-hardy Mexican varieties), damping and/or root-rot in the container, and finally nutrient deficiency.

I was thinking about hitting the trees with several, sequential foliar sprays of low biuret urea (similar to what folks use on citrus).  This is done in the industry apparently.  But as I was researching this idea, I came across the following articles, which seem to suggest there is limited benefit to Urea foliar applications on Avocados.  The fruit production was nearly halved (vs. control) in one of the varieties as well.

I'm curious if others on this forum have contemplated this question?  Also, what do folks recommend to give a deficient tree a heavy blast of N to green-up the leaves.  Assuming, you agree that N-deficiency is in play here with these three trees.

Thanks!

http://www.avocadosource.com/arac/sum_1990/sum_1990_pg_15-16.pdf
http://www.avocadosource.com/Journals/FSHSP/FSHSP_VOL_110_PG_136-138_1997.pdf





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Tropical Fruit Discussion / Avocado - New leaf damage
« on: April 19, 2018, 03:34:12 PM »
I recently planted several avocado trees from #5 nursery pots  The trees were in varying degrees of health at transplant.  We've had cold but not freezing temperatures but also some nice Spring weather over the past 6 weeks.  The new growth that the trees are pushing is showing some kind of leaf damage on most of the trees.  I'm hoping someone on the forum has an idea what this type of damage suggests?  Is this just from the ~40F lows that these trees are seeing?  Too much rain (we've had quite a bit)?  The pots (RootBuilderII expandable containers) might be holding too much moisture?   Insects?  Not enough daylight? Spray?  or what???  I have three larger, more mature trees in pots that don't show this same condition on their fresh leaf growth.

I apologize if this question has come up on a separate thread.  I did look through the avocado threads and didn't find anything obviously relevant to this specific topic.  If there's something I can do to correct the issue, if there is an issue, I'd like to take action.
Thanks for the help!







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I have a small project that involves planting several Avocado trees I recently purchased from the local nursery in RootBuilderII (RBII) expandable containers along the West x SouthWest side of my house.  I have planted Lamb Hass, Stewart, Holiday, Sir Prize, and Pinkerton.  My goal is try and keep the Avocados trained low and follow some of the precepts described in Dr. John Yonemoto's presentation here:
http://htfg.org/conferences/2016/2016_JohnYoshimiYonemoto_GrowingandHarvestingtheBestAvocados.pdf

Yonemoto's Training Diagram:


I started with just a cleared 4' dirt row along my fence:


The 34lb boxes of 96-panel (100' rolls) of RBII arrived last Friday (3/23/18):






The packages came with a couple bags of 10" Zip-ties, but I had already purchased a hundred from the local HD.  It wasn't difficult to use kitchen shears to cut the panels to size (I chose 5 per for 20gal pots) and then zip tie through the holes.


I laid the 20-gal bottom-less "air-pots" out with ~8-10' spacing along the fence.   This was after rolling out 2-3 layers of weed fabric to (a) keep the neighbor's fruit tree roots out of my pots and (b) adhere to Yonemoto goal of limiting tap-roots.  This may come back to bite me down the road, as it will limit the vigor and trunk/branch strength of my trees.  But this is supposed to direct energy into fruiting and feeder roots.  We'll see.


I then backfilled the pots with a mix of sandy dirt I had displaced earlier from the side-yard, peat moss, Coco-hulls, Perlite, worm-castings, and some other organics. I'm double-staking each tree w/ the center-stake they came with for maximum support.  The branches will be supported by trellises that run horizontal to the plane of the ground along the front of the trees.  I might try and squeeze a 2nd row of T-bars for another trellis behind the trees to help spread-out the branches.   Since the trees will be maintained at a low height, I'm hoping they'll be less susceptible to wind (also they are protected by fence and house), and they should be easier to cover with a frost cloth in the winter.  Half of the plants had some measure of root rot coming out of their nursery pots, but I hope they recover and thrive in their new homes.  I think my largest concern for the success of these avocado trees lies in the fact that they are getting limited sunlight due to their position between two houses.  I'm hoping that will not be a deal-breaker as the angle of the sun rises deeper into Spring/Summer.  I will try to post updates on this project over the coming months/years.  If anyone else has tried something similar, I'd love to know about it.  This evening after work I have to cut the tops off of each of these young trees.  That's going to be painful for me.








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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




















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