Meyer Lemon has light green leaves that curl...

Discussion in 'Citrus' started by Davidgriffiths, Oct 3, 2008.

  1. Davidgriffiths

    Davidgriffiths Active Member

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    I'll attach photos this weekend, but I thought I'd see if someone knew the answer.

    I have three meyer lemons (improved, of course). One is larger and quite bushy. The other two are a bit smaller.

    All three were transplanted back in May/June with the same soil mix - coconut husks and compost.

    The two smaller meyer lemons live in the similarily sized terracota pots (the larger one lives in a larger pot).

    All three plants have gotten two doses of compost tea over the summer.

    The large meyer and one of the smaller meyers both have dark green flat leaves.

    The other small meyer has lighter green leaves (it has since I bought it) that are prone to curling up (curling inwards from the sides). I found that if I was more frequent with water, it seemed to reverse the curling of the leaves.

    I am thinking that while I used the same soil mixture, maybe this problem plant got a different balance and water is exiting the soil too fast. That might account for the curling of leaves, but what could account for the different colour of the leaves?

    Do I have a black sheep?

    I should note that they all have lemons (and the larger plant is about to blossom).

    I'll try to post pictures this weekend.
     
  2. skeeterbug

    skeeterbug Active Member

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    CHC has good water holding abilities, but your tree may not be tapped into the CHC pieces yet or you may not be wetting the CHC thoroughly when you water. Try setting the pot into a large container with water and a soluble fertilizer like Miracle Grow for 1 minute instead of pouring the water through the pot. The light green leaves may indicate a lack of N--citrus are heavy feeders.
     
  3. Millet

    Millet Well-Known Member 10 Years

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    ,,,,,,,,All three plants have gotten two doses of compost tea over the summer,,,,,,,,,


    If all you have given your Meyer lemons is two doses of compost tea over the entire summer, you have GREATLY underfed these trees. Citrus are heavy feeders and require high nutrition. Although citrus can be grown using organic culture, almost always the tree will be of an inferior quality. It sounds like you are a little afraid of over watering your trees. If the CHC/compost mix is somewhere in the area of 4 parts CHC to 1 part compost, it is very hard to cause any root damage from over watering. When you water the tree, if the irrigation passes to quickly through the medium, not enough is being absorbed by the chips. Therefore the tree is incapable of absorbing the required water needed to adequately supply the needs of the leaves's transpiration. Under this situation, in self defense, the leaves curl closed in an attempt to reduce any evaporation through the stomata. My advice, feel free to take it or leave it as you wish, is to feed your tree on a REGULAR basis with either a complete formulation of a chemical fertilizer containg trace minersl (by far the best method), or at least a REGULAR feeding with your prefered organic culture. Once a month at the VERY LEAST, twice a month IS MUCH BETTER and will give much better results. Most container growers either use a slow release fertilizer or do weekly or bi-weekly feedings. - Good luck to these trees. - Millet
     
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2008
  4. Davidgriffiths

    Davidgriffiths Active Member

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    The pot is pretty big - I'll post a photo this weekend...

    Yes - heavy feeders - I guess they are in a different class than blueberries...
     
  5. Davidgriffiths

    Davidgriffiths Active Member

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    Millet, thanks for the reply. I am not being argumentative, but citrus trees have evolved to be using compost-like fertilizers. Chemical fertilizers are fossil fuel based. Ammonia is super-heated to attract nitrogen. This is not the normal state of nature.

    What I am hearing is that I've underfed the trees - possibly. But compost tea was the icing on the nutritional cake - they were potted in 30% compost, which is high in nutrition - my compost is primarily made up of coffee grounds, which are acidic and high in nutrients.

    And as I said, it's one of three plants.

    Regardless, I am going to take your advice, and re-pot the plants in a higher dose of compost, in a larger pot. I'll re-compost tea them again this fall and look for a citrus fertilizer for this one plant.

    I am open to advice, so don't hold back :)

    David
     
  6. Millet

    Millet Well-Known Member 10 Years

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    David, which ever method of fertilization you choose to feed, I am sure your tree will appreciate it. Just be sure that you supply them with a HIGH level of nutrition, and on a regular basis. Avoid a feast and famine cycle of feeding citrus. By doing so the trees will repay you for years to come. The best of luck. - Millet
     
  7. Davidgriffiths

    Davidgriffiths Active Member

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    OK - sounds like a good plan. I had no idea they ate so much.

    I'll attach photos in a separate post.

    David
     
  8. Davidgriffiths

    Davidgriffiths Active Member

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    I've attached photos. Assuming they show up in the correct order, the photos are,

    The larger lemon that is in good shape and about to bloom profusely.

    One of the two small lemons - this one is in good shape - dark green leaves, no curling

    The poorer lemon. It's leaves are a lighter green, and it's leaves have a tendency to curl in.

    The flower buds from the larger lemon (couldn't resit)

    Following Millet's advice, I put a top layer of acidic compost (I mixed a bit of coffee grounds in there), and hopefully that will help. But a picture shows what I can only poorly describe.

    So any additional advice welcome.

    David
     

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  9. skeeterbug

    skeeterbug Active Member

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    It is very difficult to grow healthy productive citrus in a container using organic methods--there are 2 problems--the media and the amount of N that is needed.

    To give you an example, an mature inground lemon needs over 1 lb of N per yr-- you can do that inground with organic material which is typically 1% N, but you need 100 lbs/yr. It is difficult to do that in a container.

    Container citrus need an airy media with lots of air in the soil, if you use a lot of decaying organic matter, the soil will turn to muck and it will be difficult to maintain the air in the soil.

    Yes, N fixation requires natural gas to consume the Oxygen in air and create anoxic conditions necessary for fixation of atmospheric N, but hauling tons of organic matter uses fossil fuel as well (unless you are planning on using mules).

    As Millet said it is your tree, if you are successful doing it organically, and have a healthy productive tree in a few years I 'm sure many people would like to hear how you did it.
     
    Last edited: Oct 5, 2008
  10. Millet

    Millet Well-Known Member 10 Years

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    David, may I ask how old are the tree you have pictured, and what size were the trees when you purchased them? To add to what Skeet tells us above, the most difficult element to supply container citrus trees organically is potassium. Citrus, in fact all plants, can only use nutritional elements that are in the water soluble forum. Organically, water soluble potassium is very difficult to obtain in limited container culture. In the final analysis whether you feed by standard methods, or by organic methods, the actual elemental nutrients that the tree is capable of absorbing are chemically identical. In organic culture, organisms convert the organic forms of NPK into the chemical forms of NPK that are found in every fertilizer bag. Although citrus can live in containers for 100+ years when given the correct care, in reality, the average life span of a container grown citrus tree is 2 years. As in most everything in life the difference is experience, education, and learning from the failures that we all make. David, all in all your tree look healthy enough, although the foliage density is rather thin. Increase the nutrition and both the tree size and foliage density should catch up. The best to you and your trees. - Millet
     
  11. Davidgriffiths

    Davidgriffiths Active Member

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    I have no idea how old they were I purchased them back in June, but I've had them for about 3-and-a-half months now. The larger plant is producing new leaves, the smaller ones seem to be not growing much.

    For nutrition, I should mention that I manage to make two large containers of compost per year from kitchen waste, and coffee grounds that I bring home from the office (high in nitrogen, potassium, magnesium, and copper). That plus leaves, and kitchen waste is high in nutrients (but maybe not a mix that is ideal to a citrus plant).

    The compost tea provides two benefits - it provides nutrients from the compost suspended in water (not a lot, but some, and I am not sure if it would count as liquid-suspended potassium), and it provides the beneficial bacteria that make the nutrients available to the plant (and helps to kill harmful fungi and bacteria).

    Sunset magazine had coffee grounds chemically analyzed - the report is here:
    http://www.sunset.com/sunset/garden/article/0,20633,1208232,00.html

    "Summary: Use of Starbucks coffee grounds in amending mineral soils up to 35 percent by volume coffee grounds will improve soil structure over the short-term and over the long-term. Use of the coffee grounds at the specified incorporation rates (rototilled into a 6- to 8-inch depth) will substantially improve availabilities of phosphorus, potassium, magnesium and copper and will probably negate the need for chemical sources of these plant essential elements."

    After reading Skeeters post, I did a search to see what the nitrogen requirements were for a smaller, indoor pot. Along the way, I read about someone suggesting that clover be planted around the base of a citrus tree, as clover will (where no soil-bacteria-destroying chemicals are used) trap nitrogen and make it available. I happen to have a pound of clover seed - I think I'll grow some clover around my lemon trees. The only downside is that it will be hard to add compost unless it's well crumbled.

    My big question is - would these survive outside if planted in the spring?

    The plant-hardiness zone for New Westminster is 7a/7b/8a according to Agriculture Canada, but according to other maps (University of Missouri) we are an 8/9.

    It rarely drops much below freezing in the winter, and for those few nights, we could wrap them in Christmas tree lights and a canvas.

    David
     
  12. Millet

    Millet Well-Known Member 10 Years

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    I have no problem with organic culture. I own a farm in Colorado that utilizes both organic farming principles, in the form of green manure crops that we turn under, and also traditional standard chemical farming practices. If your area is a true agricultural zone 8/9 then yes, Meyer lemons would survive out side. You would have to provide additional emergency protection from the cold when abnormally low temperatures can be expected during the winter.. This could be done with a tarp and Christmas lights. It is not a wise practice to grow any type of crop under the drip line of a citrus tree. This is especially true close to the trunk, as a cover crop increases the moisture level. Raised levels of moisture and or water next to a citrus trunk easily causes both root and stem rots, of which citrus is prone. Let us know from time to time how your trees are coming along. You sound like the type of person that will provide the trees with good care. Wishing you the best. - Millet
     
  13. skeeterbug

    skeeterbug Active Member

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    "(where no soil-bacteria-destroying chemicals are used)" Commercial fertlizers actually make bacterial grow faster--they do help destroy the organic matter that you may add to soil to make it more friable and porous. Bacteria must have NP& K just like plants. The good, nutrient rich organic matter is used fairly rapidly by bacteria, but much of what remains is high only in carbon--bacteria cannot live on carbon alone. There are bacteria in legumes and other plants that can fix N (convert atmospheric N to compounds like ammonia or nitrate found in commercial fertilizer) and there are bacteria that do the opposite--convert compounds like nitrate back into atmospheric N. They do that when they do not have oxygen to accept the electrons from carbon--so they take to oxygen from nitrate to "burn the carbon".

    I have 2 large compost piles, I recycle kitchen waste, I even collect my neighbors yard waste and I use them on my garden and my blueberries. Organic gardening has it's purpose, but it is not the best way to grow everything. There are many flowers that I grow that will not grow in organic rich mulched beds, but do well in poor sandy areas with no organic matter.

    It is possible to grow citrus inground organically, but it requires a lot of organic matter added every year. I do not know if it can be done in containers.
     
  14. SGcvn69

    SGcvn69 Member

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    Ok, so this is an old thread, but I thought I'd mention that I too grow my Meyer Lemon organically. I feed it with fish fertilizer and compost. Will probably be adding some corn gluten this year too as well as other organic stuff.
     

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