The high cost of everything...

[pslamont]

Macuu.... do you feed your tree?

Just another day in P A R A D I S E !!

[bystander]

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Noticed lots of orange or tangerine (not sure which) trees all over puna right now with lots of fruits on the trees and all over the ground. We have had one tree for almost 15 years and produces maybe 3 fruits on the tree per year. We live on 5th in HPP and was wondering if anyone could tell us why our tree produces so few fruits while people all around us have more than they know what to do with?

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I've noticed those trees with lots of fruit growing on them too. I think all the fruit we are seeing is a certain type of tangerine which does especially well here. I've seen it being grown here from many years ago. Other types of citrus don't seem to grow and fruit hardly as well. I tried growing a lemon tree with dismal results.

[sansei]

Citrus in general are heavy feeders that in my experience do not do well with competition. I would clear any other plants, especially grass 1 to 2 ft beyond the drip line. Grass is also a heavy feeder and the thick roots suck up any nutrients before they get to the citrus. I once grew a tangerine where 1/3 of the drip circle was grass and the other 2/3 was bare. The fruit over the grass was smaller and less abundant. No amount of fertilizer in the grassy area did any good for the tangerine but the grass grew like crazy.

One other consideration is the heavy rainfall can leach the nutrients from the soil and it may be necessary to fertilize lighter but more frequently. Timed release fertilizer is a possible solution but pricy. An organic mulch under the tree (instead of something like cinder) will slowly release nutrients as it decomposes and will also slow the release of applied fertilizer.

[macuu222]

Do you feed it any fertilizer? What color are the leaves? Lime green, emerald or forest? A good nursery could help out also, but your neighbors might just have a less costly solution, like egg shells, and coffee grounds a little lime and a little bit of acidic fertilizer. Don't know but worth a try! Good Luck!

mella l

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I give the plant triple 8 fertilizer about 4 tims a year, I lime it in the fall. My leaves are mediem green but they have yellowing around the edges. I have no grass anywhere near the dripline and I supplement around the dripline with compost. Being down on 5th in HPP...unfortuneately means very little soil. The ground where I planted it was ripped and soil was added (50-50 mix...soil cinder).

[sansei]

You might try switching to a citrus fertilizer which typically has something like 10-8-10. The yellowing around the edges sounds like magnesium deficiency but you are applying lime. Agricultural lime is usually dolomitic lime that has magnesium. See if the package says dolomitic. Citrus generally like a slightly acid (6-6.5 ph) soil and too much lime can affect nutrient uptake so you might do a ph test if the lime is dolomitic. If not, you can give it magnesium from epsom salt found at any drug store.

The CTAHR (the same UH group that publishes the catchment booklet) website http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/ has a lot of articles about agriculture and gardening in Hawaii on their publications pages if you want to do your own research.

[Carey]

macuu222, We have a navel orange that fruits pretty much year round (very sweet & juicy). When we bought this place in Keaau, the Filipino seller had told us to use 10-10-10 about a cup, around the drip edge during the A months (April & August). Many of our old Japanese neighbors with trees have confirmed that this is what they do. That said, we found out that 10-10-10 is not that easy to find, only have found it at Garden Exchange, and not all the time (but did find it late April last year...PHEW! would have hated to mess with the citrus garden gods!) I have also heard that some citrus trees have on & off years, but 15 years sounds like a long off time. Our tangerine tree produces like crazy from late Dec. through Feb., then sleeps, but most our our neighborhood oranges produce heavy in the winter (10+ lbs./week), but lightly (3-5 fruit/week) throughout the year. We did rent a house just below Beach, and our neighbor had an orange that produced just a few fruits, but it was planted only 5 years ago, and they didn't do anything to it...If you think it could be salt spray, you may want to put up a salt screen (burlap on posts, used alot up north to protect trees from road salt).
Aloha, Carey