Congradulations your trees look just like mine except yours have fruits.

Steve

From the leaf symptoms it looks to have a manganese deficiency. The symptoms of manganese deficiency are: Newest leaves with green veins WITH green boarders to the sides of the veins on otherwise yellow leaves. Leaves normal size. Manganese deficiencies are often caused by high pH rather than a shortage of the mineral.

alright, I gave some nutrients 30-15-30 with the micronutrients. With the nutrients, I added vinegar to lower the Ph of the soil. I checked the water ph here and its either high 7 or 8. hopefully its as simple as the soil Ph because I don't see where I would've developed the deficiency because I was fertilizing this summer.

I'll try vinegar too. Thanks.

Citrus trees are notorious for developing nutrient problems

Steve

Kevin, 30-15-30, a 2-1-2 ratio fertilizer, certainly contains a LOT of phosphorous for a container citrus tree. Citrus uses higher levels of (the first number), and higher levels of potassium (the last number), but very little phosphorous. An excellent fertilizer for citrus has a 5-1-3 ratio like Jack's 25-5-15. Phosphorous does not easily wash out of the container and can build up. With your tree the manganese deficiency can be either the result of high pH or an actual shortage of the element Manganese.

Kevin, great info here. I am sure that if your problem is not due to poor root function due to root rot, your trees will perk up.

If it's due to over fertilizing, I would pull back of the Kelp and make sure the mix is not caking up or blocking porous space because of the worm castings. I use to use those too and my trees would do the same thing. A good all balanced fertilizer in the ratios describe above is all that is needed. Using vinegar to lower the pH of your fertilizer solution can help grateful and will usually improve growth rapidly if the roots are functioning properly.

Question. Did you exposed those trees to full hot all day sun? Did you have severe heat at all for an extended time?

Thanks, Jodi! I didn’t realize a high pH could cause a manganese deficiency.

Hi mike, sorry for the late reply. So our summers are not hot here. We are categorised as warm humid coastal climate summers and severely cold winters. The temperature got over 85F maybe once this summer without the humidex. I assume plants dont really care about the humidex but we had maybe 6 or 7 days over 90F.

The area I put them in receives around 10-12 hours of sunlight a day. When I pulled the roots they looked healthy, white and coiled lightly around the pot just enough to keep the soil from falling.

The soil did not feel compact yet, I only put a little worm castings in the soil, just for the rooting hormones and I added extra perlite to the mix If I recall.

The trees did gain colour after my first watering with the lower Ph water and nutrients. I gave another watering with diluted nutrients yesterday and lower ph after 10 days. Now I’ll hold off the nutrients for a while and see what she does. I’ll update with pictures.

Kevin, great! Then watering with a fertilizer lower pH solution should do the trick. Good work.