Anyone know what causes tip dieback? One relatively healthy-looking specimen got about two meters tall, then the entire trunk died back almost to the ground and now there are three suckers instead of the main trunk. I know a few of the trees were grafted and we had issues with the graft surviving, but at this point most are seedling/rootstock trees, and the issue is still pretty common.
Minor tip dieback is more common. Just got done snipping many small, dead tips off a number of trees.
I know tip dieback is a symptom of calcium deficiency. We only applied dolomite once, and the soils are naturally acidic here, so maybe we just need to work on getting pH to stabilize at a higher level and keeping it there with enough woody organic matter. Can't say for sure if the tip dieback on these avos is necessarily a Ca deficiency as we don't do sap analysis, and haven't soil tested since prior to planting.
Most of the trees I'm talking about are located on steep slopes, so even though we get excessive rain during the rainy season, the drainage is good.
Our best avocado tree is located about 5m downslope from our banana greywater circle on a steep slope. It gets the greywater seepage and overflow constantly. The tree is massive, probably about 4m tall at three years old, and it just started flowering for the first time. There are hundreds of blooms. Never seen any tip dieback on that specimen. The vigor is like nothing I've ever seen.
The waterflow through the soil in that spot is near constant, so it has cast doubt on the old advice relating to rootrot and constantly wet soils.
Topic: Question for Avocado Experts (Read 118 times)