re: Louisiana Tropical Fruit Gardening - Experiences and Updates

Can't tell 100% without seeing the whole tree but I would prune them. It's definitely not rootstock. I like my citrus branches up away from the soil. Heavy fruit that gets too close to the ground will be marred by fungus.

Thanks guys. After looking more closely, they appear to be water sprouts that should be removed.

Climate controlled grow room comes through again. This setup is like a plant ICU. Temperature usually stays between 80-85F and humidity at 60-70%. 12 hours of soft full spectrum light. Current readout (my house is at 74F):



The key here is warm (not hot) temperatures and stability. Rescue operations are much harder when outside temperatures are hitting 90+F, random rainfall, humidity swings, wind, etc.

This Mexican cream guava arrived on 7/29/26 and promptly wilted and dropped all leaves. It's a graft, so if this one little weak branch dies I'm cooked. The plan was to leave it in the pot/soil it came in for weeks to recover before messing with the roots. But then I inspected the roots and the soil stunk (because of course it did, it had bark/rot in it). Made the questionable decision to bare root and repot the already shocked leafless tree into Gary's soil with mycorrhizae. Also hit it with brassinolide steroid. Five days after arrival / two days after repotting and it's pushing.

This is how you save stressed plants: stabilized moderate temp/humidity/light and clean mineral based soil. Not rich organic soil, fertilizer, or heavy watering. Extras like mycorrhizae and brassinolide help too, but it's really just about the good soil and environmental stability.

Guavas are tough and it probably would have survived shipping and bad soil anyway, but the remarkable thing here is the speed of the turnaround. That's a ton of stress mitigated FAST.





Y'all test some of these strategies out next time you have something going downhill fast.