When I said alkaline + trifoliate = normal, I should have added (normally) bad. And that leads to poor trees. They just don't like pH over 7. In Peter's case, I see a lot of white rock. White rock usually means limestone, calcium carbonate. Water percolating down through limestone can get too high in pH. Peter you need to find what that rocks are and what your rootstock is. Most Arizona posters here have said their trees are on trifoliate or a trifoliate hybrid. Trifoliate rootstock needs some shade (mulch). P. trifoliata comes from China and grows as an understory tree in a temperate climate, not near as hot as this. In Tucson you really need 2-3 inches of pine or fir bark mulch for insulation from the sun. Do not use hardwood mulch as it will add even more calcium. I would try the mulch. And if the rock is limestone and it is mixed in your soil in small pieces you may need to acidify and or make a slightly raised bed. Bear in mind a raised bed is more difficult to keep cool in the long hot summer. I don't like bark mulch except in this kind of service. Later on when the canopy fills out and shades the roots, you can do without it.

That is a beautiful greenhouse. I enjoy more sweet flavored citrus (like navels) rather than tart (like grapefruits). But I pretty much love all oranges and mandarins, only like lemons and limes for cooking and aides, and am indifferent toward grapefruit. I love the staple of navels: Washington (aka Parent navel). It however has a wide range of flavor quality depending on where it's grown and especially the night temps during ripening. (As you are probably aware, most citrus, stone, and other fruit tree flavors are largely determined by acid/sugar ratios which are established during cool or chill hours.) I also love the flavor of Clementines -- but they are actually close to tasting and having flesh like mini-navels. I like Satsumas even though they are slightly more tart, however they have extremely juicy with minimal flesh cells and minimal pith, so it really makes up for it. Some Good Resources There is some great reading material, albeit somewhat technical and many times focused on commercial growers, put out from Univ. of Florida extension and Univ. of Calif. extensions. I've seen materials from other states, incl. AZ, TX, and even a couple from WA. Even Kern County here in CA provides good material for our local growing climates. Maybe you can find some for your area. I'm glad to find technical material from these centers because it seems like every book or guide on Citrus are nearly identical and their cursory style is suited for the masses. But with technical material also comes a need for background knowledge and critical thinking particularly in when recommendations are made because of the dissimilarities of their environment and yours. After reading citrus books in the library and at stores, you'll also realize not much more would be learned from that method. So FWIW, Here are some of the online sources I've used to educate myself on citrus. For Florida there is the Univ. of Florida IFAS Extension Site or go directly to their BULLETINS You can google or UF/IAS for the extensions document numbers: HS949 and SP248 that provide some OK rootstock information. Or the Univ. of CA. has a great Free Publications website. And the individual UC shools have their own sites that contain some unique (and many duplicate) articles. UC Riverside and Davis are big into citrus. UC Davis Citrus for Home Orchard This might interest you: Cold Hardy Citrus Myth? for WA A great site that is attempting to house all citrus variety technical information is the UC Riverside Citrus Variety Collection . It's listing is un-paralleled and the major varieties are complete, but many varieties are lacking details. Do with it as you see fit.

Ok I am not being clear at all. The "bad trunk" is the one with the sad branches at the top. In the pictures, it is the left trunk in the pic of the base of the tree and in the picture of the whole tree, it is the center trunk. I bought the tree at a nursery in a small pot I think about 7 years ago. They told me it would get up to 15ft tall. It was brushy with a lot of trunks so I picked out some to keep and as it got bigger, I chose these 3 trunks to keep. I repotted it to a bigger pot for a couple years until I put it in the ground. All of the trunks have thorns, it is just the one that seemed to only have thorns on the branches as they reach higher. I noticed that that trunk didn't have flowers even on the lower branches with normal leaves. I am really shocked today to see the leaves growing very fast on that branch just with the rain all day. There were tiny leaves starting that took off today. Just at a glance all the branches on all trunks look the same but I will take some pics of the leaves for you. I don't usually water the tree because I run my air conditioner drip to a rose bed and banana trees about 10 feet away and we get rain regular. I can start treating the bottom with daconil if you think that might help. It is planted a little higher than the rest of the area so it never sits in water. The nursery said to plant it high so I did so you can see some the root. We do have a lot of clay in the soil here. Last Year I thought the shape was not so good and when I looked online at pics, it seemed that all the pics looked messy in their shapes so I decided to see if I could train the tree to take a better shape and cut off a lot of the branches that were clumped together and crossing each other. If you think it is too big, I can cut off the top where the sad branches are anyway. I had hoped to get a little shade from it but that really doesn't matter. With our erratic winters lately, my hopes aren't high to ever have edible fruit. We usually are still hot into november. thanks again, Joan

STAR Ruby red Grapefruit. People interest in the "STAR Ruby red Grapefruit" may have hope. Very often its the rootstock its grafted to that causes an early demise. I know with kumquats that there are few root stocks that have long term compatibility with the Meiwa making for slow growing and dead trees. A grapefruit can be grown from seed and bud wood of the exact variety could be grafted to it. It might do real well. This applies from zone 10 down to zone 2. Give it a try, Northerner/southerner, and lets see what happens. root stock to kumquat trials. just for an example of incompatibility. Steve