I saw your pictures of your citrus on another site. You gave the ingredients to your soil, but didn't include estimated proportions.

Would you mind going over those proportions? Thanks

Hi Beginnercitrus, Welcome to this forum. We are very glad that you joined with us, and hope you learn a lot and also contribute a lot. You are very welcome here. You might not get a response from Benny, as I think he left on vacation for a couple weeks. If anyone else can help you just ask. Again welcome. - Millet

Thanks Millet.

I am nervous about planting soley in CHC and peat just due to all the maintainance that they require with fertilizers to keep the nutrition.

I wanted to do a CHC and soil mix, and I had read that Benny had some success with that.

Do you have any recommendations Millet?

Also, just purchased a Dancy in a #7 container from Durlings. It's a very nice looking tree in terms of shape and branch development, but I have noticed all the leaves are bright green with yellow bloching in between the veins. Is this likely due to the PH of the soil? Wish I had a meter to check. The soil is actually very well draining. I bought them on Monday (purchased a Honey and a tiny Clementine as well). All look very nice, and the Honey and Clementine have dark green, healthy leaves. The Dancy is the only one I am worried about.

I have some pictures of the tree and the leaves. I don't have a hosting site, but I can email them for reference.

Thanks

Beginningcitrus, a lot of container citrus growers are currently using CHC/peat or CHC/Coir. I currently have over 70 container trees in CHC/peat and a few in CHC/Coir. Why do you think fertilizing them would be a lot of work? No matter what growing medium you plant your trees in, they will have to be fertilized, if you want any kind of fruit crop. To fertilize a container tree only takes about 90 seconds once a month, or if you use a slow release fertilizer you only add it once every 4 months or so. The main reasons for using CHC are: 1) light weight, 2) they hold seven times their weight in water, while still giving EXCELLENT aeration. 3) they have a natural pH of 6.5 . 4) they do not break down as other wood chips do. 5.) They offer excellet drainage. 6). They resist compaction over a very long extended period of time. There is no hard and fast rule that says you HAVE to add peat moss as the second ingredient. I have heard of people adding compost, manure, coir, or a mixture plus other items. I would not add perlite, as perlilte makes a big mess. You just want to be sure that you don't ADD TO MUCH "filler" causing the removal of the aeration, and drainage. Actually, I think CHC's are less effort than many other growing mediums. Of course CHC's are not the only good growing medium, there are other formulas that have been used that also gives good results. Whatever type of medium you decide on just be SURE it drains fast (less than one minute) and supplies AMPLE aeration to the root system. About the yelllow leaves, what color are the leaf veins? I wish you luck and sucess with your new trees. Nice having you as a member. Take care. - Millet

I would second Millet's caution about adding too much other stuff to the CHC mix. I was at first skeptical about the CHC:Peat ratio and I tried a CHC:peat:manure mix at ratio of 3:1:1. The mix in the bottom of that pot was a soggy mess.

Any time you lose fertilizing trees in this mix is compensated by time saved in the reduced frequency of watering. The CHC seems to give up it's water as needed by the plant.

SB

It is also important to make sure your CHCs have been thoroughly soaked and rinsed, and preferably used while moist. Theyre not as hydrophobic (water-shedding) as Peat products, but I think they wet better when theyre soaked/dunked or given a nice long slow watering now and then. Just my experience so far....

SB, your correct about the water holding power of CHC's. We have had two weeks of 90 - 102 degree weather. My trees are still inside the greenhouse with all the exhaust fans running. When the exhaust fans are all runnning they totally exchange all of the internal greenhouse air every one minute, with fresh air from the outside. With this high heat, plus all the air being pulled through the greenhouse, I still only watered the trees in the CHC containers pretty much only once a week. - Millet

I have to agree about the CHC moisture retention. I'm using a 1.5 parts peat to 4 parts CHC ratio and so far I'm watering them about half as often as I have to water my trees still in the media I was using previously.

Moving away from black plastic pots is helping too I think.

.....Alan.

Thanks for the replies everyone. The veins of the tree are green on the Dancy, so that sounds like lack of Nitrogen? (been doing A LOT of reading around)

With regard to the soil, that does make a lot of sense. I was unaware that the PH of the CHC's is perfect for the citrus trees. That is good news. I think I will try this mix. I read another thread where it looks like Millet, you had a special salt that you added to the CHC chips after soaking. What was that, and how much do I need to add to the final rinse?

Also, I have read that you need a 5-1-3 slow release fertilizer, but then there are ingredients of STEM, and others. Are these all pretty expensive, and where do you find them?

Last, you stated you also use a regular fertilizer once every three months. Which kind would that be?

Thanks

About your leaves with green viens it could be iron deficancy i have the same problem with one of my trees, try iron chelate and use it a foliar spray. If you don't have iron chelate go to a local nursery they should have some. if you can find it at all i would use a fertilizer with a high iron percentage. Hope this helps.

Biginnercitrus, without seeing a picture, the symptoms of your Dancy leaves sounds more like a deficiency of iron rather than nitrogen. The symptoms of a severe deficiency of nitrogen are totally yellow leaves with no variation of color, or YELLOW ORANGE VEINS with some green out on the far side. The symptoms for a less severe nitrogen deficiency show up on the OLDER LEAVES with the newer leaves will still having some green. The symptoms of Iron deficiency are NEW LEAVES with GREEN VEINS on an otherwise yellow leaf with no green border area around the veins. In a Magnesium deficiency the OLDER LEAVES have a green delta spape color in the lower center portion, while the tips and sides are yellow. I learned these symptoms a long time ago from Dr. Malcolm Manners. - Millet

Does anyone have an email address I could send these pictures to? A clear answer would be a great to attack the problem.

I know it isn't a watering issue, because the tree looks very healthy, upright, and full.

link

Found a link of a tree in this forum in pictures, that has leaves similar to mine. If you go down to the Algerian Tangerine, you will see the splotchy light green in the leaf, with strong veins showing.

This is what a lot of leafs, specifically new growth, are showing on mine.

Maybe it is nothing and I am freaking out.

If your NEW leaves have a light green color simular to the leaves on Benny Algerian Tangerine, than there is nothing wrong with your tree. All NEW leaves of citrus are normally light green in color. It takes about two months for new citrus leaves to darken to the normal mature citrus leaf color. - Millet

Yeah, the leaves are a little splotchy all over, not just new. Can I fertilize with micronutrients to get rid of this problem, like in that citrus mix I metioned in another thread?