Hi all,

This spring we planted a number of fruit trees in our yard (guava, persimmon, mandarin, jujube and white nectarine). Everything is thriving - the guava is about to flower, the jujube is in the process of flowering, the persimmon is studded with 3/4" fruits and the mandarin is chock full of 1/3 - 1/2" fruits.... all except the nectarine tree.

The real disappointment is that it started out so great. Full of leaves, then it bloomed beautifully and was developing lots of healthy looking fruit that got as big as 3/4". Then, I noticed fruits disappearing which turned out to be squirrels who ended up stripping all the fruit and broke a bunch of young, still green branches.

I could live with the disappointment of no fruit and was ready to move on to next year, but now, the tree itself is really struggling. At first the leaves got really droopy, then wrinkly and are now basically crumbling into dust. I've tried watering less, watering more, watering deeper. The tree gets tons of sun. I have no idea what is going on.

At this point, I'd really appreciate two points of advice. 1) any ideas as to what happened and 2) what do i do now? Should I pare back all the branches and basically try to let it regrow next year? Are there any "diagnostics" I should be running to determine a) what happened and b) the future viability of the tree?

Not that I expect it to matter, but hte tree is about 15 feet from a 50ft redwood. I thought the acidity might be the issue but read that nectarines actually prefer the slight acidity.

ok, sorry for long post and thanks in advnace!

Carl

Thanks in advance!