Help diagnosing what’s wrong with my navel orange tree!
Andy Jacksonville 9A
3 years ago
I live in Jacksonville Florida and the tree is about 5 years old. I feel like I have been battling bugs and fungus the entire time I’ve had it. I’ve considered just leaving it alone for a year to see if the issues work themselves out? I’m not sure if that’s the right thing to do or not. I’m looking to see if anyone has any tips on helping my tree. Within the past few days it’s dropped a lot of leaves but has a ton of new growth on it. Thanks for any help!
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JoJo (Nevada 9A)
3 years agoRelated Discussions
Whats wrong with our orange tree? Wierd leaves and not growing..
Comments (25)If you have trifoliate leaves, you have rootstock growing. Not the lime cultivar. 2" is just an arbitrary measurement. The graft line can be as low as the soil, or up the trunk even as far up as 12". What you want to look for and very clearly identify, is the graft line. Where the cultivar scion was grafted to the rootstock. Any shoots emanating from below that graft line will be rootstock. Any shoots emanating from above the graft will be the scion (your cultivar). If your rootstock was a trifoliate hybrid, you're going to see "leaves of three", hence the name "trifoliate". If you can provide some close up photos of the trunk at varying heights, we can try to see if we see a graft line. If I have time today, I can snap a few photos of my trees, and show you where the graft line is, and what to look for. For me, I think it is very obvious, but for someone new, it may not be. Patty S....See Morehelp! what's wrong with my orange tree? with pics
Comments (5)John. If your growing using compost and organic fertilizers that "weakly weekly" method does more harm than good to the beneficial bacteria in the soil. I would suggest a slow release organic fertilizer and, if you need to, an organic liquid micro formula. Also if your soil Ph is too high OM and elemental sulfur will eventually bring your Ph under control. Its the use of chemical fertilizers (ie Miracle Grow and the like) that over time depletes your soil of anything organic (including earthworms, mychorrizae and beneficial bacteria) eventually the only thing that helps your plants is the "weakly weekly" method because your plants become so dependent on the chemical fertilizer due to having nothing of substance in the soil. I used to use chelated fertilizer in my soil until I began reading the soil forum. The good thing about organic gardening is once you get your soil established you rarely have to feed your trees as most of the nutrients your trees need is in the soil. The only time I use liquid soluble non organic fertilizer is in my containers and pots. For my in ground trees I have begun a schedule of using compost with %10 worm castings twice a year, tree specific organic fertilizer with chicken or steer manure and beneficial bacteria with mycorrizae 3 times a year covered with pine chips once a year. I also purchased some earth juice micro blast just in case I see micro deficiency. And to help bring down the Ph of my soil I have been using an elemental sulfur blend combined with compost and OM. I figured my soil had been depleted so bad from my grandfather using nothing but chemicals over the last 40 years that I would bring the soil back to its natural best. So far things are looking good and more earthworms are returning. I had ZERO before so any is a plus:-) To answer the OPs question...If your tree is small enough you can just squeeze the CLM (youll find it on one side of the leaf kind of wrapped in it) with your fingers and they will pop and die. No need for chemicals. Here is a link that might be useful:...See MoreNavel Oranges Splitting, Dropping Fruit, and Attracting Weird Bug
Comments (2)In fact a navel orange is actually a small orange growing inside the larger fruit. As for the insect damage, I am not expert in this field; but it looks like mite damage; it occurs early in the life of the fruit and the most common symptom, as you have noted, is the fruit colors prematurely. I sometimes get this in my garden Meyers that are not systemically protected from insects. Nothing you can do about it; the damage is done and the mite is long gone. In the future get your 10x loupe and check for mites early in the flower/fruit development; if you find them, treat accordingly, or as I do in my field trees, protect them with a systemic insecticide....See MoreNavel Orange heartbreak
Comments (11)My Washington navel doesn't ripen until January. But that's in a greenhouse in Alpine TX at 4500ft elevation. I would think that heat units would affect ripening dates to some extent. So mine probably won't ripen when they do elsewhere. Many point out that fruit from young citrus trees isn't as good eating quality as from a mature tree. I suspect this is related to more vigorous growth from a young tree. Too much water and fertilizer lowers the sugar of almost all fruits. So that may be a factor here as OP says the tree is very vigorous. The biggest misconception of people trying my fruit is to think that the first fruit they try of a particular variety defines that fruit forever, wrong. You need to eat a lot of any fruit for several years to really know what a particular fruit will do. For citrus you may need to wait until the tree settles down. In short it could be your culture as much as the variety. Some things you can't change about your growing conditions others you can....See More
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
3 years agoSilica
3 years agolast modified: 3 years ago
Sara Malone Zone 9b
3 years agoAndy Jacksonville 9A
3 years agoSara Malone Zone 9b
3 years ago
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