The Tropical Fruit Forum

I'm not a big fan of starting a new topic for every question when I think adding it to an existing thread helps consolidate useful information. However, the last thread I could find labelled for Miracle Fruit advice turned into a bit of a snipefest. Even the forum code suggested I open a new thread instead of replying to the older one. So anyhow, here goes...

I have a metre or so tall Miracle Fruit tree in a roughly 15 gallon pot that I planted around a year ago. for the best part of time it did well, and when it started to look a bit iffy, I managed to perk it up with some acidifying fertilizer and got a decent berry harvest for the second time. However, it soon started to look sick again, which I initially put down to our crazy record-breaking hot dry season this past spring. However, two solid months into rainy season and it still isn't looking great.

Some background. I potted it with a mix of perlite, local topsoil, compost, and peat moss.  Our local soil is very alkaline and tends to clay up when wet.  The well water that is used to irrigate it during drier spells is also very alkaline. I've been religiously giving coffee grounds, sulfur, and measuring the pH to get it into optimal range, plus occasional weak compost tea and foliar sprays, so I am thinking I have other issues.

So what next?  In my opinion I think that the soil has sludged up, or salt/saline conditions are taking over.  I drilled lots of big holes to the pot to help drainage, but I think the roots are just too wet still.  Sadly I think I will need to pull it from it's pot and try to repot it with a cleaner mixture.

My questions are:

1) Am I even on the right track with my thoughts?  Can I try something else before going defcon 1?  I'll try to add a photo of the tree/leaves tomorrow
2) I heard that Miracle Fruit get upset very easy when the roots are disturbed. How would I go about cleaning up any sludgy mess should I find it?
3) Related to #2, is there any suggested substrate mix which will avoid using my local crappy topsoil?  I have most ingredients one could need, so it would be about putting these into an applicable mixture.
4) Am I crazy even trying? She's an already decent sized tree and don't want to give up on it.

Thank you in advance of any replies.

Reaching out to any experts on Ice Cream Bean Tree growing for help on what could be wrong with my containered Inga.

One of my trees seems to grow new leaflets frequently and in that sense seems to be thriving. However, soon after they open and elongate, they fall off. The older leaves from last year are looking fine, and I have not really changed much since then.  Since I have a basic soil, I have added (not all at once) a mild dressing of phosphorous rock, some weak iron chelate drench, foliar sprays with humic and fulvic acids and micronutrients, plus a trichoderma drench to take care of any soil pathogens, but it still continues to do the same. For all intents and purposes, it looks chlorotic but I cannot seem to fix the issue. The crazy part is, I have a second, smaller tree (last two photos), that is thriving with the same general soil mixture, sun exposure, water regime, and so on.

Currently, we are in the very hot and very dry season, which takes it's toll on all my trees and plants. Had I not have a second thriving tree, I would not have questioned the issue and put it down to seasonal stress or a micronutrient problem from the basic soil.

Hopefully someone has some suggestions.

Sick tree:







Healthy Tree: