I was thinking about this and can't really find an answer. What does fertilizer do to our citrus? Or why can't I use fertilizer on a recovering plant? If a healthy plant needs fertilizer in summer, how can a recovering citrus recover enough to get through the winter?

Just some thoughts on which I cannot seem to find a good answer myself.

Well, why do you eat?

The way I understand this : we feed plant only when it is growing because we must see nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and oligoelements as building materials. The plant use them to build new cells. When a plant is recovering it already as most of those building materials and need time to reorganise them in a more efficient way, but a supplement would only make it more difficult to absorb water through the root system because of osmosis effect. (a milder form of rootburn)
N.B. When you stop fertilising, a lot of nutrient is still available chelatated by the soil and will be slowly released to support the low need of a recovering plant.

Olivier

Thank you for the extra info, I will use it wisely.

Somewhere here on this forum I was told that 250ppm N from 23-6-10 is egual to 1 teaspoon of thix mix but searching the mighty internet I discovered this site were they are completely different from what I have been told.

http://www.firstrays.com/fertcalc.htm

which one is the right formula?

With the recipe from here I should add 3 teasp. to 1 gallon in order to get 250-300PPM and over there by adding that ammount I get 900 PPM isn't it too much ?

found it

Millet wrote:

If you want to make a 250 PPM solution using the fertilizer 23-6-10-2Mg0, it would be much easier to make it in a larger quantity such as a gallon (3.8 l). Adding 4.06 grams of the above fertilizer formula to one gallon (3.8 l) of water will make a 250 PPM fertilizer solution. . - Millet (736-)

The problem with using volume measurements, such as teaspoons, one never knows how many PPM he is applying. A teaspoon can be anywhere from 6 to 10 grams, or even higher. However, for just a couple plants, I don't think one would get into two much trouble, except perhaps for plants like orchids. When Citrus Joe and I visited the Citrus Clonal Protection Program (CCPP) at the University of California at Riverside, I was very surprised to learn that they were fertilizing their container citrus trees at 300 PPM with EVERY watering. - Millet (548-)

So there wasn't root burns or anything wrong , high level acidity in medium, big leaves?

I'm more affraid by the overdoze and not by the under.

To answer Sven_limoen question, about why fertilizers are used on plants (in our case citrus trees) . Fertilizers do not directly provide any energy to our citrus trees. A tree receives all of its energy form sunlight. The ingredients in fertilizer (NPK) are used by the tree to manufacture various biochemicals like enzymes and proteins, that are needed to run the tree's metabolism. - Millet (548-)