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ricfoster89

New branches on orange tree appear triangular not rounded

ricfoster89
8 years ago

Hi,

A brief history of my orange tree.

A few years back i decided to try and grow an orange tree from a seed, not expecting to succeed. 3-ish years later i have a 2 foot orange tree indoors in a 7 inch diameter pot (6.5 inch high)

Over the years its done surprisingly well. A good amount of leaves. Ive not really done much to it other than feed it "when it felt right" and kept the soil moist/damp and allowed it to dry out from time to time.

However, this past winter seems to have taken a strain. Ive had a reasonable amount of leave drop, particularly some of the larger older leaves. Id estimate 15 - 20% with the majority of the leaf drop from the main centre branch. It appears new shoots/leaves are growing from where the old leaves have fallen so im not too concerned about that at the moment.

The thing that is concerning me most is that the 3 main shoots are growing in angular fashion, this is to say a squashed cylinder shape rather than a perfectly rounded branch.
Also some of the leaves are starting to show signs lightening in colour at the edge 10-20% of the leaves with the centres still remaining a deep green colour.

Can anyone suggest what issues i have, if any, and how to correct them.
My tree currently sits on my window next to a radiator which is has done for the past year (although radiator only on during winter)

Possible issues

-Air too dry/too hot?

-Lack of water?

-Over water?

-Lack of feed?

-Too much feed?


Any help welcomed, i only started growing this as a "what if" and now its become a little obsession, and i dont really want to do anything to kill it!!!

Cheers
Ric

Comments (9)

  • ricfoster89
    Original Author
    8 years ago

    Ill get some pictures tomorrow. Although what you've said is a little reassuring that some of what im seeing is natural. It just seemed a little abrupt as for the past 3 years the tree has seemed happy, it must be coming of age!

  • ricfoster89
    Original Author
    8 years ago

    Hi, Ive attached some photos of my orange tree,

    As you can see there seems plenty of light during the day.

    There are little brown spots on the back of some of the leaves which have been growing in number (not size) over the past few weeks/month



    The orange tree as a whole has lost a number of leaves, and they are still dropping


    There are some new shoots in places but not everywhere. On the very tips of some of the new shoots some appear slight brown rather than a bright vibrant green



    However a lot of the leaves look OK hence why im confused, what every the issue is it doesn't seem completely wide spread

    At first i thought perhaps over fertilization so i flushed the pot with water which once passed was brownish in colour indicating a presence of organic and fertilizer matter.



    I also have a younger lemon tree next to it with slightly worse problems. browning on the leaves seems more wide spread and the new growth seems quite pale



    Any suggestions?

  • ricfoster89
    Original Author
    8 years ago

    Turned the plant and found more brown patches

  • BarbJP 15-16/9B CA Bay Area
    8 years ago

    What is that potting soil made of? It looks almost like pure sand. If it is then that would be your problem. Sand has very little air between the particles, and so if you water too much the plant basically suffocates. Plants need water, but also need a tiny bit of air around each soil particle.

    The brown spots appear to be edema, which I think is a physical reaction to too much water. Not sure though as it's not very common in my area. Someone else may comment on that.

    The paleness of the leaves, imo, is from too much water too often, and lack of nutrients. But that doesn't mean to fertilize it right now. It could also mean the roots got a little damaged from the heavy mix and lack of air, and so are not delivering nutrients efficiently right now.

    If I were you, I'd re-pot into some better draining, airier mix, like Gritty Mix or 5-1-1. You can look up these mixes by doing a search on them in the forum search box up at the top.

    When they recover and the roots become more healthy after re-potting would be the time to feed them. It could be several weeks after re-potting. Never feed a stressed plant.

  • ricfoster89
    Original Author
    8 years ago

    Thanks, the mix is basically about 30% sand to 70% multi-purpose compost as i didn't have anything else. The top half inch is mostly just sand as this pretty much irradiated a fly problem i had where they were laying eggs in the sand.


  • BarbJP 15-16/9B CA Bay Area
    8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    Yeah, the flies were probably Fungus Gnats. That also makes me think the soil is staying too wet, as they breed in damp peat/compost. If your mix has more air and dries faster you'll not have problem with the gnats either.

    ricfoster89 thanked BarbJP 15-16/9B CA Bay Area
  • tim45z10
    8 years ago

    How many hours of direct sunlight per day?

    ricfoster89 thanked tim45z10
  • ricfoster89
    Original Author
    8 years ago

    This time of year about 5 direct as im on a south-east facing window. Then another 6 - 8 hours light but not direct sun as its on the window ledge. I live in the UK (Manchester).

    Today i replaced the top 1/3 of soil. This removed much of the sand. The soil below was damp, not moist and warm to the touch (Heated due to sun)


    Below are a small section of roots i was able to carefully remove.


    Thoughts?