re: Louisiana Tropical Fruit Gardening - Experiences and Updates

What’s in the background
Purple leaves ?
Spice Zee nectaplum??

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Will try to keep about 10 feet tall if I can

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That was my plan with one of my peach trees. It's now about 15 ft tall and about the same across . It grew so fast that it kind of got away from me.

OK all the 10 day forecasts are now predicting temps in the mid 30s on the Northshore for next Tuesday morning 11/11. Unless you are on the south shore or down da bayou, this is your 7-day warning to prepare all tropicals and subtropicals for frost and freeze protection.

Frost protection is different from freeze protection. Frost occurs when the air in one area cools much faster than the air around it. A tiny area reaches 32F or lower and the ice that develops injures sensitive plants. Frost can occur at 37F with the right conditions (clear skies, calm or no wind, high humidity). The easiest way to avoid frost is to move everything under a covered area like a patio, garage, or under a tarp. I am doing frost protection anytime I see temps below 40F because my yard can easily be 3-4 degrees lower (or higher) than the forecast based on my direct measurements. My forecast for last night was 44F. We hit 41F.

Freeze protection is when air temperature hits 32F or lower. At that point you are best off just protecting and even heating everything sensitive. I don't take risks here. I've got years of work into some of these potted trees. I'm not rolling the dice because the forecast said 36F but a pocket of colder 29F air settled on my backyard. It happens all the time. You aren't going to find a mango tree at your local nursery to replace one you lose.

"Winter" is unfortunately here early in south Louisiana. November 2024 had temps in the 90s. Take this week to get your plan together and take the weekend to set it up and test it.

Nope, no nectaplums yet. Planted it in July. Growing fast though so it may be able to hold a couple next year.

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Bought theses lights for our 2 lemon trees. Is this what you'd recommend?

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No. Those are C7 bulbs. They are smaller than C9, put out less heat, and they fail like 10X as often. I threw all mine away. Was going through a entire box of 50 replacement bulbs per month. C9 is what you want.

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Planning on also building small greenhouses out of PVC and visqueen.

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It works, provided there is a heat source. What are you protecting?

Thanks. Cancelled the order and got C9s.

Protecting a meyer and a ponderosa. Both are about 3-4 ft tall trees in heavy clay pots that I can't move.

The plan is to use the lights and the greenhouses to protect the trees from the cold and wind.

It's about that time...

Looks like either fertilizer burn or drought stress. It's a bit chlorotic too.

How have you been fertilizing and watering?

It's definitely not anthracnose.

It can be very hard to figure out what is causing plant symptoms. My strategy is "fix everything" and you usually end up hitting whatever the issue was. I would do the following if this were my tree:

1) give it some osmocote plus time release granular fertilizer. This is the easiest fertilizer on earth and trees thrive with it. Follow label instructions and you will feed it slowly and completely for months. No overdose risk.

2) give it a single deep watering of distilled water. This flushes out anything bad that might be in your tap water. Also flushes out fertilizer salts, which can build up. After this watering give it a good while before watering again. Let the soil get to a point where it's barely even moist and not wet. Mangos are not thirsty trees.

3) give it a foliar feed with a good foliar spray that includes chelated iron. Those leaves should be dark green, not yellowing. A foliar feed can often fix this.

4) test your soil pH. Mangos do best in a mildly acidic soil that includes peat. My tap water is pH 9, which is incredibly basic. I have to account for that with my soil mix and amendments.

5) double and triple check your soil permeability and composition. The number one most important thing you can possibly do for these trees is to have a mix that drains fast. That usually fixes all other problems in my experience. But if you already have a good sandy mix and the water goes right through it, then this probably isn't it.

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Ate the first papaya off my tree today. No musky flavor like I was worried. Very sweet with an almost perfume like aftertaste. Kind of reminds me of a honeydew melon

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Nice! Do you know the variety? I hate papaya because of the muskiness and people keep swearing to me that I need to try one of the sweet Hawaiian types.