Hi

I was following a thread where the individual was growing a Meyer lemon in the North Western part of the US. He seemed to have sucess and had a small greenhouse around it.

I was wondering: why doesnt this Meyer experience the dreaded winter leaf drop? Surely the soil temperature is cool ( or cold) and the tree appears to get sun.

thanks frank

I do not know the actual soil temp in the NW, but here in NW FL where we often get winter temps in the 20's, the deeper soil temps remain around 68 F. The surface soil is a good insulator and the cold does not actually penetrate that deep. In addition, if the tree is planted close to the foundation of a home, the soil beneath the home will be warmer. So while some of the roos may be below the magic temp of 55.4, deeper roots will be above that and able to supply the needed moisture.

True, The tree I am refering to was planted in Victoria BC. I would guess with the low winter sun angle that the ground would be fairly cool............

That and the fact that it seems most people ( like myself) experienced winter leaf drop on their indoor Meyers'

Frank, I know the very tree you are talking about. Victoria enjoys rather warm/mild winters. Skeet would be correct about Victoria's soil temperatures. The only major protection required for citrus in Victoria would be from the occasional drop in air temperature during a cold front. - Millet

Yes Victoria stays warm most of the year, it is always mild. Except this past Nov. they got a bad winter storm, worst they have gotten in years but that meyer lemon if I remember correctly came through just fine. Thats the thing that is nice about the west coast but it is always raining there cause of the rockies so fungal diseases are a big problem. Well Victoria and Vancouver get almost the same weather as Seattle.

"it is always raining there cause of the rockies". The Rockie Mountians are 400 kms (250 miles) east of Vancouver and play little if no roll in rainfall there. Closer are the Coast ranges and Cascade range which has more of an effect. Pacific rain storms sweep over the region during winter, and can stall against those ranges. A similar situation occurs here on Vancouver Island with the Island ranges giving the west coast (Tofino - Ucluelet) higher rainfall totals than the east side of the Island. Victoria is mainly in the rain shadow of the Olympic mountains.
To say that it's "always raining there" is absurd. Summers are quite dry and droughts are common during July - Sept.

Cheers, Barrie.

I am sorry if I offended you Barrie, when i say "it always rains" i meant like in winter and spring and it seems to get more rain than most of the west. That is when out west seems to have a lot rain, but i can't really say because i have never lived there. I only base it on the fact that i hear it is hard to grow certain tree because the fungus thrives because of the rain. Again I am sorry if I offended you.

Myself and apparently lots of people have experienced the winter leaf drop with the Meyers.

I guess I am surprised that the soil at this latitude is warmer than my living room.................I would have thought it cooled off in the winter....

Hey valenciaguy,
No worries, I just felt the need to clarify that common misconception. People from around North America are lead to believe it always rains in the PNW, much like the belief that Canada is covered in snow year round, we live in igloos and we're fur trappers. Back in the mid 60's my father encountered a car load of people who had crossed the border from Detroit into Windsor. He chatted with them at a gas station for a few minutes and found out that these people where looking for snow and wanted to do some cross counrty sking in July! hahhaha.
And no frank_zone5.5 ... the winter soil temperature in Victoria is not warmer than your living room.

Cheers. Barrie.

Hey everybody, just checking out this site for the first time in a while and I think you must be talking about my lemon tree.

I'm really happy and maybe a little surprised that it has made it through the winter with no real damage or leaf drop. Valenciaguy is right about some unusually cold weather (for us) in late November. I'm located right by the Pacific Ocean, at sea level, which means that it doesn't get quite as cold here as in other parts of town. The low during the November cold snap was about -5C (+23 F) in the immediate vicinity of my lemon tree, which is against the house and faces southwest. We had a similar cold spell in January, and overall the coldest winter in about 5 years, but the tree pulled through fine. I had it under plastic from about mid-November through mid February, and I wired Xmas lights around it, which I turned on during the two cold spells around the clock for about 3 days each time.

Our climate is Mediterranean, so it is fairly wet in the winter. (Though nothing like Seattle or Vancouver, which get twice as much rain - we are in the "rain shadow" of the Olympic mountains, 30 miles and across the Juan de Fuca Strait.) Summers are mild (not hot) and very dry. Thunderstorms almost never happen, days are cloudless for weeks on end, there are water restrictions, and it's not unusual for us to have no rainfall whatsoever for the two driest months (August and September).

Here's a couple of pictures of the tree taken a few weeks ago, just after I took off the mini-greenhouse (also pictured, and tied down due to a pending wind storm). I've picked about half the lemons since about Christmas time when the first ones ripened, and the remaining ones, as you can see, are ready to pick.

Looking forward to the upcoming growing season!

thanks Leap, it is very impressive and I am jealous.!!


As my Meyers and now another unknow type of lemon keep dropping thier leaves and it appears it is due to Winter leaf drop ( cold soil)

I am wondering why you dont loose your leaves as your soil must be fairly cool............


Frank

There are two parts to the typical WLD scenario that Millet has told us about-- cold roots and hot leaves (from exposure to direct sun or intense light). As I mentioned, I do not know what the deeper soil temps are there, perhaps leapfrog may have some knowledge of that, but the other half-- hot leaves is maximized in a house where the air is heated and relatively still while the leaves are being exposed to direct sun, and also humidity is low which reduces the "heat capacity" of the air (the ability of a fixed volume of air to hold heat or to put it another way the amount of energy it takes to heat that fixed volume of air).

In the case of leapfrog's meyer lemon, the humidity inside the plastic greenhouse is very high, air is also being moved by convection and the wind--even it it only pushes on the sides, and the air inside the greenhouse is colder than inside a house. All of these factors help to cool the leaves when the sun is shining on them.

I actually lost a few of my seedlings from exposure to intense light inside my shop during a cold spell-- they were on a table without added heat but with a shop light only inches above them. Again--cold roots (around 40-45) dry still air in a unheated space, but the leaves were being heated to excess by the intense light.

-- You have just had a beginning lesson in physical chemistry --(gasses and thermodynamics).

Skeet

Well, Frank let me start by saying that I'm no expert. Having said that, I wonder if your leaf drop problem is the result of too much difference between the temperature of the soil (if you plant is by a window that might get a draft at night) vs. the temperature in the area above the soil (in a sunny window)? Maybe it's not so much the cool soil as it is the difference in temperatures above and below the soil, or the temperature swings throughout the day. There's also the possibility of too much watering. I know that house plants tend to be over watered.

Anyway, my plant has been dormant for three months, and the difference between temperatures above and below ground has not been significant, even with the greenhouse over it. At our northern latitude (48 degrees, 25 minutes) there is little daytime heating in mid winter. Even when the sun shines, it's low in the sky and doesn't generate a lot of heat. On a normal winter day (90% of the time), the air temperature high is about 6 or 7C (43 - 46F) and the overnight low is 2 or 3C (36 - 39F), maybe 1C higher under the cover of the greenhouse at night and 2C warmer during the day. I'd be very surprised if the soil temperature is materially different at any time - day or night.

I only watered the tree twice in the last 4 months. While the cover wouldn't let in any rain, the tree was dormant, and there isn't enough heat on even a warm, sunny day to dry the soil out. The watering I did do was without fertilizer, as I stopped fertilizing in the early fall (late September). My summer fertilizer, which I'll start feeding the tree with in about a month, is all purpose Miracle-Gro (24-8-16).

thanks this has been very helpful, one of my Meyers has started to regrow the leaves.

Another lemon tree was doing the same. However this is a big tree and I placed it on a new heater mat. A week of so later it lost all its leaves. The soil temp is around 75. The tree receives full sun.

The house temp is 60-70 F.

any suggrestions would be appreciated

Frank