Thread: Fruit, Nut, and Vine Grafting, Tree Propagation, Tree Care

Originally Posted by SuperDave336

Good job saving those. How do you know when it’s root rot?

The scions stop growing and when you pick up the pots they are always heavy with water. When they are consistently heavy the trees are not pulling the water out and using it to grow. I wait not till the pots are light and shallow water. Keeping the scions in the shade allows you to run them a little dry. I got bit pushing the growth with sunlight directly on the pots. It killed most of the scions I rooted. You can see the roots, you can't tear them off but the heat rots them from the scion bark out to the roots. I can't tell you how happy I am the Miss Hall is alive. When it is back in size I will send you scions, you will really like this fig.

I have some cuttings I think have root rot. I’m going to try doing this to save them. Wish me luck.

Originally Posted by SuperDave336

I have some cuttings I think have root rot. I’m going to try doing this to save them. Wish me luck.

It happens, I ran the rooted fig cuttings so dry last year I watered after the leaves would wilt a bit. I had a extremely low failure rate. The root balls were very lite before I would water. Also kept all of them out of direct sunlight on the pots themselves.

Good Luck. Run them dry.

One of my friends had a nice satsuma tree on the side of his house that last winter's freeze really wacked. I was not made aware of it till recently when he ask if I could take a look at it while I was over at his place spraying his pecan trees with Zinc. I assume the guy who does his lawn care did the initial hack job removing the dead limbs, except for his machete everything else he owns is dull.



Here is the stump as I found it.



You can see there is enough energy in the roots to form buds and sprout new limbs. The process had taken place once already but damage from insects (Swallowtail Moth Larvae) they ate all the first and most important growth off. When I got there 4 of the biggest caterpillars I had ever seen were on the trunk. They can change the color of their skin to match the citrus tree bark. They really stunk when I stomped each one.



Here are examples of the Sour running the limbs back towards the roots. If it makes it to the roots, game over. The dark area must be removed.



Just keep making cuts till the darkened wood is removed.



You can see here I made numerous cuts. Not wanting to remove any unnecessary extra wood I kept cutting some cuts as short as 1 inch till we had good wood. All these cuts were made with the saw I graft larger trees with, it is very, very, sharp for as clean a cut as possible.



A sharp saw alone is not enough. Look closely at the cuts and you can see I shaved the cambium areas of the bark with a razor sharp skinning knife. This will promote the bark to callous & heal quickly.



People think citrus trees are "trees" they are not they are big bushes. Their trunks can't take direct "all day" sunshine. Since I was not ask to stabilize this tree sooner the sun had already scalded the sunny side of this trunk. To boot, bores had already started feeding in the sun scald damaged area. The whitewash used is white exterior plain latex, the cheap stuff, cut 50% with water. I informed the owned this was not a slam dunk treatment but it was not a Hail Mary either. Time will tell if I got to it in time.

I had to pick this fig before it got any bigger. We have had rain for several days this week and if I wait any longer the water will wash out the flavor.



This is a Condaria Fig. Check out the size. Oh, BTW I can palm a basketball sometimes.

Well it definitely looks better. I think it will survive and be happier than if you hadn’t worked on it. Good job.

Good looking fig. Is that the first of the year?