Grafted Lemon, tangerine and lime tree w/ no fruit

[larosap]

I bought this lemon, lime , orange tree in a pot from Home Depot and it had all these beautiful fruits established. Year after year I got less and less. Bought citris tree plant food. I did not seems to help.
I planted in the ground last year and now it has no fruit at all. Great leaves and looks healthy but no fruit. Any suggestions?
I'm in sunny So Cal location so it should thrive!
Thanks,
Paula

[The Helpful Gardener]

Here's an Italian study that says organics stores nutrition in soil better for citrus...

http://orgprints.org/7814/ Love the spelling in the abstract...

This Chinese study shows that pushing chemical fertilizer increases the need for trace minerals...

http://www.ipni.net/ppiweb/sechina.nsf/$webindex/38D48BDB7103705C48256B6A0007A971?opendocument&navigator=fruits

So where do trace elements come from in an organic or wild system? They are etched out of the soils by a weak acid reaction caused by biology, some of which can help the plant greatly. Here's something from the best guy in the biz, Dr. Mike Amaranthus, on why he thinks they're important (I have seen his company on Modern Marvels, the cable TV show and have had the pleasure of conversing with the good doctor on two ocassions. Smart fellah.)

http://www.mycorrhizae.com/index.php?cid=391

The Homeowner button will take you to where you can find Dr. Mike's stuff for home use; this is the good stuff...

So the tree is getting the N-P-K from the fertlilizer but it's killed all the biology...but with that biology we need very small quantities of fertilizer, the kind we can get organically, because the plant is ten times better at finding nutrients (because of the symbiotic fungii that are helping feed the plant, because the plant is feeding them). Plus we start a whole host of other trophic cyles as bacteria get eaten by protozoa get eaten by soil mites get eaten by worms get eaten by birds and moles, all releasing nitrogen in the form of, well poop. But that's how Nature works; when we interrupt that cycle with chemical fertilizers, we rob the plant of it's natural systems and replace them with our own. Except we often aren't very aware of what the plant wants, well, because it's a plant and they haven't learned communications yet. Give them time. A lot of time...

So while we aren't 100% certain it's a micronutrient deficiency we do have two scientific papers that suggest strongly that might be the case, and a strong suggestion that the best thing you could do to get better all around conditions for your tree would be to add soil biology and not kill it. Thought about going organic? It won't solve everything, but it does take care of a lot of issues, like infertile soil (and an increasing lack of pollinators; another possible issue...)



HG

[larosap]

Thanks you so very much for your most interesting reply!
I'd love to go organic.
Grazie,
Paula

[The Helpful Gardener]

Prego!

Ciao!

HG