How do I save my dying citrus?

all right good afternoon everybody it is jay again and it is citrus season and they are looking absolutely beautiful it is time for them to bloom and set their fruit and you can see we've got some bees out here getting completely drunk in the pollen of these citrus trees so we're going to go over citrus trees real quick and we're going to see if we can save a couple of your citrus trees before summer comes on because that's when a lot of the citrus trees are lost all right so yeah the citrus are looking absolutely stunning if we go through these these trees you can see they are absolutely saturated with their blossoms i mean there's so many blooms this year it's blooms on top of blooms these trees look awesome this year all of them every single tree i have here looks really really really good so let's go over a little bit of the problems with citrus and what might happen as far as them defoliating right now and let's see if we can save some of these because everybody's citrus does not look like this it should look like this guys in arizona if you live in arizona your citrus should look like this where it's blooming and it's fruiting at the same time and it's got some beautiful leaves on it beautiful green foliage and lots of love now these are in pots so let's go look at one in the ground that they should look the same okay so here is one that i have in the ground this one is called a a tango mandarin and look at all the fruit that this tree has set like look at that little little patch right there and this thing just has branches and branches and blooms and blooms but you can see that this one obviously this one is in the ground so this one is just as beautiful though i mean look at the green leaves on this plant there are no no issues at all whatsoever with vitamin deficiencies or with sunburning or with salt burn i mean look at the leaves on this thing they're absolutely perfect the brand new leaves that are on it the older leaves that are on it i mean this tree just looks absolutely beautiful and a really good size and like i said this is a tango mandarin and there might be might actually be a couple fruits left on this somewhere from last year yep here we go a couple of this beautiful fruit from last year so you can see that it obviously can set fruit and look good at the same time you want them really full of leaves right now that is the most important thing is you want to have them full of leaves but right now what happens to a lot of people's plants are is they're going to defoliate and they're going to be losing a lot of their leaves right now and the reason they lose a lot of their leaves is because usually they're in too much sun and they're too small of a tree and they're too they're too fruitful meaning they're putting on too much fruit to the expense of it not growing or losing some of its leaves okay and this generally happens when trees are smaller okay smaller plants look at the look at the mandarins that have set on this thing like that is incredible that is the that is an insane fruit load right so you want nice healthy plants right so what happens these guys well they have hormones okay so if you think about it like this they're basically in two phases during their life cycle so they're either going to be in a growing phase or they're going to be in a fruiting phase and generally they're not doing the same thing at the same time usually you'll get that at the very beginning of the spring like this when you get a little bit of growth and you get a little bit of flour at the same time but the tree is going to put on the fruit at the expense of the leaves so a lot of people during winter you're going to get the first leaf drop where a lot of the leaves are going to turn solid yellow and they're going to just fall off and that's actually a good sign because that just means that they were old spent leaves they were just getting a little bit older and eventually they're going to turn solid yellow and they're going to fall off but the leaves that are dropping right now are dropping because of this extra fruit load because the tree really can't handle doing two things at once right so you want to give them extra water during this time period and a lot of the trees are i got an example i think what a lot of the trees in the valley sort of look like right now all right on the way there i'm going to kind of touch on this and this is another mandarin so this is a gold nugget mandarin and as you can see they do just fine out here in the full sun so it's not the sun that's getting them in fact behind this one a big citrus you got tall on me behind this one is a metal wall you can see that metal that blue metal wall right so it gets pretty hot behind this guy and actually this one is also super super saturated with blooms and fruit and you can kind of see already that the leaves are already turning a slight lime green or bronze even the brand new ones because they're adapting that color to the color that they need depending on where they are so the ones that were darker green i showed you earlier those get some afternoon shade this one out here it gets full of sun pretty much all the time so his leaves are going to be just this kind of slight slight off green this kind of lime green color right they're going to be this way out here in the full sun now let's head back over here to this one i wanted to discuss because i've got one over here that probably looks like a lot of the trees looked like in the valley and it's this one here so you can kind of see that this one has lost a lot of those a lot of those leaves right so not much canopy here on this one we've got a few blooms we've got a few leaves we've set the fruit on some of these and now what's to happen well we're getting towards april it's getting hot right so you kind of have two choices of what to do if you have a citrus tree that looks like this one does i hope you guys can kind of see that this one is kind of sparse as especially even compared to this is one that's right next to it right well this one doesn't have any fruit because i picked the fruit off of this one so this one didn't lose any of its leaves and kind of sacrifice any of itself to the fruit this one put on a gaba fruit this one actually has quite a few of these fruits and these are these are larger fruits right so these are pomelos these are going to be a lot bigger of a fruit so it's going to take a lot more energy off the tree right so you basically have two choices at this point of what you can do now to save this tree the first thing you're going to have to do is give give them extra water and this is usually when people start to cut back the water because they think they've over watered it and that's why it's losing a lot of its leaves so they turn the water off of it right now which really kind of means death to a tree that looks in this condition right so you want to give them extra water what that's going to do is that's going to flush out all of its new growth again it's used so much energy and water to produce and set these few fruit that it has on it that like i said it sacrificed the leaves now so now you have to really pump back the water into the plant in order to get it to stimulate its new growth again so it gets a whole bunch of these more of these new leaves and branches right here that'll now cover the framework and structure of this tree because what's happening is not having any leaves on it is now allowing the sun to come in here and burn these twigs and branches whereas before the sun wouldn't even penetrate that canopy because it's going to be super thick like on your other citrus trees so what it is is it's a matter of that sunlight getting back into this frame structure of this tree right you can see how many open spots are left on this right well this the reason that this one did this in particular is because this is a pomelo which don't which really don't like the full sun and the heat's already coming on right so i can fortunately completely save this one or bring this one back because all i have to do on this one is just drag this one back here into a little bit of the shade where it's just a little bit darker here that will cool this plant down just enough so that it can put all of its new leaves back on and it will be able to provide its own help and i won't have to shade it right now what would happen if this was out in the yard though if this was planted out in the yard and i didn't have a choice to drag it into a spot where it's a little bit cooler to maybe save its life well in that case what you're gonna have to do is you're gonna have to put a shade cloth up over the plant if you've planted it already you're gonna have to put at least two sides with shade cloth to provide a little bit of help for this thing put its leaves back on and cool itself down for the summer because summer is right here right and if you leave it in this condition i can tell you exactly what's going to happen and that's these branches are going to start to die back and they're going to start to get snappy and one branch will go then the next branch will go then the next branch will go and eventually you have complete collapse of the tree because you've burnt basically every stem and every branch and every leaf and all you end up with eventually is this little trunk and then people wonder why they've got a citrus tree for 12 years and it's never really grown it's because you haven't been observant and watching when it when it's getting some damage like this one so this is sort of completely normal depending on which varieties that you're getting and especially if you're talking smaller trees because smaller trees have not adapted to the climate here yet and of course they're going to shed a lot of those leaves it's very very very important to get things that are locally acclimated and grown here by someone that knows what they're doing in order to get these to a big size for you it's very hard to get big pomelos here in the valley and it's very hard to get them big because they eventually they eventually burn and so they just they're not successful in the valley because of that but there are definitely ways in which to get them more successful all right so this is a pomelo in the ground and as you can see this is a really really happy one obviously because this one's back in a shaded a lot cooler area so this pamela is actually growing underneath a pomegranate over here to the side and then it's got an enormous uh pear tree above it which is giving it that afternoon shade pomelos have huge leaves and they've got huge fruit and they really set a lot of them like they they are very prolific look at the size of those flowers guys so that tells you right there that the fruit are absolutely enormous right and this thing is completely loaded up with fruit so he spent a lot of his energy doing that right so even this one in the ground back here has defoliated quite a bit you can kind of see he's thinned himself out quite a bit through there but this one real soon here especially being back here in the shade he'll flush his new growth here soon man that's a lot of fruit that is a lot of fruit on this tree and being back here where it's a little bit cooler it's going to be a little bit happier back here in the uh in the sun than that one that i just showed you that was out there in the full sun in a pot which is basically the worst condition that you should ever give a plant right they like it to be nice and cool underneath them citrus love it when it's when it's nice and shady underneath them and then they're allowed to kind of grow up grow up into the sun so he's up there over the wall now and he is fine with the with the sunlight so that's what you got to do guys especially if you're going to buy these smaller trees it's okay to get smaller trees from you know lowe's home depot costco but i definitely would not plant those in the yard i think i would put those in a pot and definitely grow them into a larger size before i sacrifice them to the yard because a lot of your plants that look like this or look like the one that i showed you earlier are because they're a plant that's not acclimated to arizona they've come from california so a lot of that's going to be your box tree citrus and i know the price is nice and not that's what people are going for obviously but then if you spend you know 30 bucks a tree and you keep killing them every year for five years that adds up to quite a bit of money also so you definitely want something that's that's locally grown and locally adapted especially when it comes to things like pomelos and mandarins and kumquats because those things are a little bit more sun sensitive and so those can't be put out there in the full sun like people like to do the the rest the citrus so where you buy it's very important try to get something that's locally acclimated it won't have such a struggle through the summer and it won't have such a struggle to get to this larger size and then once it's this larger size it's pretty much bulletproof at that point but i can guarantee you a lot of your trees look like the one that i showed you earlier where it's got just a few sparse leaves so to kind of recap guys this is how citrus is supposed to look like right right now right especially your stronger varieties your oranges your limes your grapefruits or lemons they should all definitely look like this right now and we'll go back over to that example of what they're not supposed to look like because i really pretty much just have the one okay so to recap here a lot of your citrus probably look like this right they're going to start looking worse especially if you don't do something about it i can tell you what's going to happen next is you're going to continue to lose a lot of these leaves and then you're going to see these branches go from green to tan to brown and then they're going to dry up and snap off you're going to start losing branches towards the tips you're going to start losing them down into the core right and then eventually that that trunk is going to be exposed to the sun and then it's going to sunburn and then once it's gone pretty much the plant is gone so to kind of recap for success on arizona one would be to buy on the best rootstock that you can buy which would be on sour orange now i know that's not available everywhere but that's your best bet not everything is grafted to sour orange so you're gonna have to get some other root stocks and get good at growing if you want some other citrus because not everything comes on that one which is really really easy the second thing you're going to want to do so root stock is one second is size size matters i wouldn't put anything in the ground that had under a one inch trunk absolutely nothing in arizona period point blank hot cold they just don't make it they got to be an inch trunk so if you want to buy these smaller trees that's okay but you're gonna have to do what i do and let's put them into a bigger pot and become a nursery and grow them to a larger size and then plant them once they're of a larger size because they will make it right so size matters rootstock matters and then of course locally acclimated matters the more it's adapted the better so this one you don't see this the phases that i go through to get this adapted well one is obviously getting it out here letting it burn a little bit lose some leaves drag it back into the shade let it put its leaves back on drag it back into the sun put it leaves back fry the leaves a little bit more put the put it back into the shade and then it's this whole back and forth deal until you get them out here in the full sun and now they can take it because they're a lot larger of course you probably can't see these because the the sun's probably blowing these out but these are a lot larger and so they can handle it now just full blooms these are ore blancos here but yeah they'll take the full sun because they're a lot bigger tree these are above my head so stronger fuller way more leaves and real nice branching structure and a real nice trunk on these and you can even see that some parts are even getting over into the shade now and those look a lot greener than the stuff that's even up here into a little bit of the sun which gets a little bit of that solar bleaching every year where the leaves are going to bronze out just a little bit and he'll put on some new leaves the color that's more appropriate for arizona so that's the third thing the fourth thing would be if this was in a pot it could definitely be saved because you just drag into the shade and let it relief if it's not in the shade you're going to want to put some sort of a shade cloth on it 30 to 50 percent make sure you keep it well above the plant well above the tree or you'll end up cooking it because you have it too low and this tree is already in a stressful state and you could absolutely take it out of commission by doing that so shade is very important on something this young and then water would be the next so the really the only thing that's going to reflush this tree ultimately in the end is to cool it down and give it some more water and it will reflush again and it will look exactly like this one over here which is a lot more what they're supposed to look like right this is an older blood orange so a lot more adapted so people don't see what we go through or what i go through to get these things adapted to arizona it's very very important so that a person doesn't have to look at a tree that looks like this in their yard you're gonna have something that looks like this and stays looking like this instead of degrading in your yard so yeah go ahead and comment in the uh the comments below and tell me if you've if you're having this experience or if you've had this experience with citrus i can guarantee you it's happening to a very large portion of you in the valley right now and you're freaking out and a lot of it's just because you're not you're not from here and you haven't seen this happen before but this is this is good ol arizona for you and especially smaller plants and especially something that can't take the full sun like like a pomelo all right guys uh i think i i think i included everything in this this was just a video from a facebook post about somebody losing losing their citrus trees and defoliating and they just they looked like crap right now and they needed to save them so i figured i got a pretty good example of one of one out here all the other citrus look really good but i have there's a kumquat but i had that good example of that one because i knew i had this pomelo and if i had a a buddhist hand citron or a citron it would look the same it would look just like this being out here in the sun all right guys i think i included everything hopefully got it all in there um uh water's the most important and feeding isn't so important until you get the get the health back on this tree think about it being like sick in the hospital and feeding it ain't gonna do guys like you can feed it all day long if you want but it's really the water that's gonna help these guys out all right guys i think that's it thank you for watching

Channel: Arizona Fruit Trees

Views: 11,396

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Id: tQTMyJ0cl1c

Length: 22min 11sec (1331 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 02 2021