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ike_stewart

Managing Freeze Damaged Citrus?

Ike Stewart
2 years ago
last modified: 2 years ago

As many of you know I am located in SW Louisiana, we were hit here by the same extreme cold that hit Texas in February, and even though we covered and provided heat lamps many of our in ground citrus trees were damaged in the extreme freeze, and I may have l lost one entirely. All had 100% leaf loss, and all but 1 now have at least some new green growth. I will focus here on the 3 worst hit that are showing green growth, in no particular order:

1, CaraCara Orange tree planted about 5 years ago, was about 8 ft tall and 5 ft, now the highest new green growth is at about the 6 ft point, and only extends out about 2-3 ft down the limbs from the main truck. Though what is there is thickly covered in green leaves. Call it 50% die back by volume.

2, Unknown mature Satsuma (30+ years old), about 15 ft tall, and 20 ft wide pre freeze probably the hardest hit, call it 75% die back, now about 12 ft tall to the and thinly 10 ft wide with lots of large limbs showing no growth, only one branch of the main trunk showing growth up to the 10 ft point, looks very lopsided at the moment.

3, Another different variety mature Satsuma, slightly larger the #2, perhaps 30-40% die back, not as concerned about this one surviving, just wondering when and how much to trim back the seemingly dead limbs.

I ask all this because I had another Satsuma that lost its cover in our 50 year record freeze a few years ago, had 100% die back, and did not start leafing out until the following August, It went on to produce fruit with about 50% long term die back, but never recovered, some new limbs, but lots of cracks in the larger limbs, and sparse growth and it also appears dead now, Having 2 large trees fall on it in the last 2 years did not help it any prior to the freeze. First one was a leaning tree which the tree removal guy said would miss the Satsuma when it fell, it didn't, second one was an oak tree during hurricane Laura last year when he had 130+ mph winds.

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