Could it be a fungus? Twig die back usually starts at the end; not in the middle. Have you checked for some sort of citrus borer? Perhaps some type of mite that chews on the stem and leaves behind something like leprosis or infective saliva. You might need a 10X loupe to find things like mites. Borers are more easily spotted, as they leave a hole (that sometimes gets back filled with sap.

Thanks John! I will look. I noticed that too. With the twig dieback on my other trees, it does start at the end and this is in the middle of branches. Some of the branches even had leaves still on the ends that were green and well stuck. I cut them off to where it was still green. I'll go look now.

I looked with a magnifying glass and see nothing strange (I don't know exactly what to look for though). Here are better pics. This branch still had some leaves attached at the top where it is green. I took off the leaves to feed to the guinea pigs...no reason to let them go to waste ;-)

Oh Laura, it is so sad that happened to your tree! Check under the pot for some ants or other bugs, I lifted my pot yesterday and found some of the soil on the ground under the pots and saw some ants around it. I moved my tree to another spot and will see will it happen again or not. Check just in case. I don't even know what to suggest. Salts build up, insects, water ph?

Thanks sunshine! Things are not so bad...yet. The picture above is what it looks like now after cutting off those branches. I think there may be a diseas of some sort like John suggested because none of my other trees have those symptoms. If no one else has any ideas, I am going to take the "nuclear" approach and spray it with 1. Copper fungicide, 2. Malathion. Question: which should I spray first? How long between applications should I wait to spray the other? It has no fruits or flowers now, so I will separate from my other trees and strike before things get out of control.

I'm still at a loss as well- sorry that is happening Laura! I still have a bit of black creeping on my nagami kumquat which started inside. I keep cutting it back to get ahead of it and I have lost my whole leader now. It might not make it. I have never had it start out side though.

Fingers crossed for you! It does look like a minor branch so hopefully it will stop.

Laura, I am not up-to-date on what happened to your other tree,,,did it come through ok?

My biggest kumquat tree alarmed me a few years ago by hosting a pretty significant branch die off, especially on the west side. I was concerned it had a nutrient deficiency or maybe the wet weather had left the roots too soggy for too long. I don't know if anything I did mattered but the tree is still alive and well and does still drop off a branch now and then. Is your affected branch a lower branch? My kumquat doesn't look all that healthy to me but there are lots of reasons mine could be suffering. I wonder if kumquats are more susceptible to loosing branches and maybe it drops some of the lower ones as it grows upward?

Laura, that branch die back happened on a couple of my trees too. I think maybe it was due to the big changes in temperatures we have been having and also that long spell of cloudy, rainy and cool weather. Then we got a few days of 99°F for a few days and several of my trees are in black pots so maybe the roots overheated and also needed more water when I was away. The temperature dropped down again to the low 50s and we got another long cloudy rainy period and again temperatures went up to 99°F again. I think all those changes stressed the trees a bit, but they are still blooming and sending out new growth overall. I repotted quite a few of my trees during that time period too. I think they are settling down again and will be fine. I moved some to a little more shade as some of my trees seem to do better in a bit of shade than full sun all day long.

Cory

Laura, what a bummer. I feel for you and your little Kumquat tree. I was so sad when my Nagami Kumquat had branch dieback and that led to its (and a few others) ultimate, swift death. The good news is that your tree is still alive with green branches and you are taking good care of it. You still have hope.. :)

John, my other kumquat (the twin of the one I posted about) started exactly like that. Green leaves just started falling off and the branches started turning black, but it was like that...they did not start turning back from the tips necessarily as often happens. It just deteriorated and then died. I did an emergency repotting of it because I was worried about the roots, but they did look very healthy even though the mix the root ball was in was different. This kumquat put on a big flush of growth and otherwise looks great, but so did his twin this winter. Cory, I did wonder about the weather, but this just seems alarmingly similar to what happened to the Beast. Jinny, I know you understand. I am going to go forward with my plan unless anyone has any reasons why I should not. I do not want to take the chance with this one. I have seen branch dieback on my other trees - I know that is normal, but, as JohnM said above, it is a weird pattern because it is in the middle of the branch. Perhaps there is some microscopic bug that spreads the disease or some type of fungus....I don't know.

My nagami had branch dieback this past winter, so I cut back the dead branches and repotted from 511 into gritty. It continued losing leaves and dieback continued until finally all leaves came off. I forgot about this tree and thought I had discarded it until recently when I was taking inventory of my trees and noticed this tree with only new growth on it. Why it's the nagami! Looks ugly but its alive.

That growth near the bottom is probably rootstock.

Thanks Greenscape. You have a point about further stressing it. I've still not sprayed the chemicals but I did partly spray most of the trunks and branches with neem/HO after I sprayed my infected gold nugget. I will be watching it closely and will report back. It looks great otherwise.

Mine almost looks like that too Vlad.

Keep us posted Laura, I hope it stops soon.

You are well ahead of me in terms of citrus experience, Laura, so my comments are more just general plant ideas.

If there was any sort of small damage or if you pruned something off in the middle of a branch, that could be a pathway for pest/disease. Then the dieback might start there and then progress towards the trunk.

Mites are very small, you probably need a loupe with higher magnification to see them. I did a quick search for mite damage on citrus and it appears like leaves and fruits are more likely to be affected.

What was the gold nugget infected with?

The GN has scale, and I am certain it came with it from FW bc none of my other trees have it. I suspect they disinfected it as best they could, but bc the leaves are curled and tightly packed, it came back. I thoroughly treated it last evening. Anyone getting a GN from them should beware. I checked my lemons from them and a pixie and they all look good.

I'm rather surprised that Four Winds Growers does not treat their trees with a systemic insecticide, since this would control almost all insects expect spider mites and perhaps hard scale (this would be crucial if a company wants to avoid selling infested citrus). Perhaps it may be worth contacting them to find out?

Laura, I too am very sorry about that! It can be very discouraging when a tree looks and is doing so good to all of a sudden do that. I once, yes, once had a tree from FW that did the very same thing and I lost it. That is why I always question the root stock and wonder if the roots to the root stock just give up like that?

If not, then I am going to agree with the HOT cold affect. That is exactly what happened to my Kumquat tree last summer but it made it through thank God. It was not bugs or anything like that, but it did happen to mines from being in the very hot sun to all of a sudden cool.

I hope you figure it out. Sorry again(

Mike

Tropical, I may call them and at least let them know. It was not terrible, but definitely there. Mike, I think you got confused with this thread...I can totally understand since we switched from my kumquat, to the GN having scale...lol. The GN is a new tree and is totally fine other than the scale that I have treated (and will treat again). The issue is with my kumquat like the one I lost over winter - its twin. This is a grafted tree from Hines Growers. It is a very robust and beautiful tree as of now, but then again, so was the other one. I freaked because this is exactly how the other one started to deteriorate over winter. It started dropping leaves from partly blackened branches and it just spread until it all died. I kept clipping the blackened branches until there were none left :-(. The remains of it are now a chew toy for Enzo...so sad.

Hi Laura, can you post a photo of the graft union on your kumquat? Does this tree still sucker?

Here are a couple

Anyone that recently purchased a Gold Nugget from Four Winds should do a very thorough check for scale on their tree. Four Winds must have had an outbreak in one of their facilities because I know of a number of people on another forum that purchased a Gold Nugget recently from them and they were infected with scale also , unfortunately. .

Vladimir, I am so happy to hear and see that your Nagami came back to life. How wonderful! :) Mine is a goner with only the rootstock left after I cut all of the dead black limbs off of it.

Greenscape, you may be onto something with the temperature changes. My trees that experienced die-back were in my sunroom for the winter and the temperature did rise a fall a bit.. But most that had dieback were from the same company..While others were not affected so it is either that or the rootstock. I had no problem with mites. The trees in another room in my home where the temperature was stable all came through the winter beautifully. .

Yes Jinny, I just realized I had missed Vladimir's post. That is great! I wish I could say the same for mine. Vladimir, I am sure it will recover nicely for you. What about that big one you bought last year last minute? Was that the one you posted about? I know the tree looks great now, and I hope I am just being paranoid, but I am certain the symptoms are the same. Hopefully this time it will either stop on its own since it is happy outside or I will be able to figure out what is wrong.

We have not had big temperature swings, but it has been quite hot lately. That should not cause that though...my other trees do not have that.

I do wonder if the dieback is some type of kumquat vulnerability. As I watered my trees this evening, I noticed that the limequats each have a brown branch. I have cut away branches from them in the past also - more than any other tree. These are Lakeland limequats from RB, however, they are doing incredibly well, just a couple of branches died back.

Laura, that must be the one you are thinking about because I do not have any other Nagamis. It is the one I bought at a farm stand. It is from Record Buck.

Laura, oops...But it was still a FW tree..lol I hope it works out ok, Please keeps us updated, ok?