I last fertilized in beginning of Sept thinking by now soil temps would be below 56* - & some are there now I tthink. Cara Cara had a lot of leaf drop last month, & now has a ton of blossoms ready to bloom. My other meyer lem. did nothing all year & now has blossoms. Persian lime has 4 nice golf ball size limes on & is putting out new growth AND blossoms. Ponderosa with 1 almost ready-to-pick lem. on, lost all lower leaves last month & is blossoming. Temps in sunroom have been between 55 up to 66* last 2 months. Maybe I shouldn't have, but yesterday I fertilized them full strength seeing all this growth. I even fert'd my IC banana & a slow growing leaf shot way up since yesterday!
They only get direct sun from 9:30a.m. - 10 till about 2:30 & then lites go on till 7:30. Even my cal that I picked the last 10 fruits from is getting blossoms.
Hey, I'm not complaining LOL, but they are in for a surprise in next few weeks when we start getting cold blasts. Do they think it's Spring? And,why? Why didn't they just go to sleep for winter?
I had lites set to turn off at 9 but last 6 weeks off at 7:30. I won't let it get any colder than low 50's at night, but I can't afford to keep it heated enough to keep soil temps over 56* esp Jan & Feb. Will I lose all this fruit?
Should lites turn off at 9 again for awhile? I don't know what to do.
BTW, there are 3 big ones in big pots on floor where it is colder...only leaves see light, & they all have blossoms.
Thanks for any advice/opinions. And, just want you to know this is the best year I had in growing citrus & fruits---all from reading here!

Patty, the most important tool you need is a soil thermometer, so you can tell what the root temperatures are, and then act accordingly. If the container's root zone temperatures (soil temperature) drops and stays below 55.4F the lighting at night will not do any good, and could actually do some harm if the lights warm the leaf surface to high. If the root temperatures are warm, the leaves should be warm, but if you are going to keep the roots dormant (<55.4) then the leaves also need to be cool. Cold roots and high light could cause your tree trouble. - Millet

Thanks Millet. Yes, I know about root temps & leaf lite, but this is different I think. 3 & 4 weeks ago I put my aquarium thermometer in a few pots -- about 3 1/2 inches down & temp was 56* - 58*. WLD happened over last 2 months, but not bad. It got cooler since. There was a couple days when it was sunny that temp in Sun room got up to 68* but it was mostly 55 - 65* in there. Before I went on trip, I noticed blossoms starting on several trees & thought it was odd as the temps are getting cooler.
I had my house heat set at 60* while I was gone. All registers closed except in kitchen - next to S room. S room doors were open. I hear it was cool (40's) & gloomy that week. If house temp was 60*, S room would be in mid to lower 50's (no heat register in there) only getting some heat thru doorway. Ther was no sun to heat it. If room temp was in 50's, soil temps had to be lower, so that is why I don't understand all the growth & blossoms! The temps only got cooler.
Just checked my calendar, & I brought all plants in on Oct 11 as they called for frost that night. It was 40's that day, & no sign of blossoms then. S room never got below 50*. Maybe I brought plants in too late? I don't think so as temps outside were upper 40's - 50's then, so no drastic change.
OH, now that I think of it, yesterday I heated the water when I fert'ld the plants to warm the roots. Used my therm. & it must have a leak, cuz it sunk in water & is full of water! Gotta get a new one. I'm sure soil temps are borderline on growth & no growth temps.
My question now is, will I lose all these blossoms & baby fruits when soil; temps get below 55-56* or will they just hang there? What time should I set my lights to turn off? They turn off at 7:30 now.
Thanks

Inside a structure, I could understand that the temperature of the potting media would be buffered or averages out, slow to heating and slow to cooling than the air around it.

I am baffled as to why most of the time the temperature of the potting media would be cooler than the room. That would seemingly be a physical impossibility.

The things that could make these happen would be inordinate amount of water evaporation (not through the plant) rate directly from the potting media into the air when the air is extremely dry and the very cold floor with direct contact with the potting media. This is unlikely the culprit under the mentioned temperature range.

The evapotranspiration (note the intentional difference in terminologies used) through the citrus leaves should cool down the leaves of the plants, much cooler than the air temperature. If there is no water uptake through the roots, because the roots are metabolically slow, then it stresses out the leaves and cause it to be hotter than the air under radiation load.

There should be no radiation loss as the potting media is reradiated from all sides inside a structure which should help increase pot temperature compared to same pot exposed in the wide open outside of building structure.

The air temperature and the pot should through time, equilibriate with each other to the 24-hour average. Thus half of the time, the pot temperature should be higher than air temperature and about half the time, lower than air temperature.

When it seems that it is lower most of the time, this certainly violate the laws of physics and may worth some investigating, , unless of course . . . .

Thanks Joe, I don't know why I'm thinking soil temps would be lower than air temps (?)
So, if the low temp would be 50* & high is 62*, it averages out 56* so I should be OK with that! Or, if low gets to 48* then I should get the high up to 64*. Hope I can keep ave. of 56 in there. If it should get below that, I know the plant won't grow. I just hope it won't lose all the fruits.
Also, now that I tnink of it, it did get in mid 40's in there about month ago, so maybe that induced the blossoms.

Patty,

Consider also another trick that I often use: Use a relatively warm water, somewhere around 70 - 80 deg F to water the plants. Any higher might shock the roots. You can pour more water, but you should manage the extra water. What I do is to actually place the whole pot in a big tub, and let it stay submerged for at least a couple of hours. Then remove the pots, have them drain in another container, check the temperature in the tub and add warm water to bring temp to 70 to 80 deg F, and use another batch of potted plants to be soaked. The extra water in the tub, I use excercise to haul them away pail by pail to water my inground citruses outside. This helps soak all those dry spots in the pots. I only do the soaking once. Then I water with warm water thereafter.


Joe

Rock on!

Feed em' da juice Patty! Most people stop feeding after Sept. so the new growth won't get nipped outdoors. Indoors? Give em' the juice, Patty!

Hey Scott, yup, I juiced 'em!
Missed you at the expo!!!! You got an excuse as good as Darrens?

Joe, I remember Benny saying he uses warm water too. I will do that.

I loaded all my citrus in a trailer. By the time I got to N.C., there were no leaves or fruit left, so I turned around, SHAMED.

My citrus enjoyed a banner year. Broken branches from the weight of it all, nary a bug or chorotic leave. I didn't want to share my perfected cultural methods with any of my web homies so I stayed at home and sucked sour lemons.

Okay, the first two were lies.
Here is the real excuse:

I really wanted to see Millet and Garnet and Stan and Ned and Patty and the Dentons, and all of the other fine people that I met at the 05' expo.
But, I could not afford to make the trip. I'm flying out to Oregon for Christmas with my family to visit my little bro and his peeps. I had discussed it with the ministress of finance and got blank stares. Sorry I missed it. Hope you and yours are well. PEACE! Scott

P.S. I went to Florida for Thanksgiving with the inlaws. see separate story in citrus snooze(I mean news)

Scott- I was there in sprit only '05, you havent met me....

happy safe other travels!