I've got a satsuma to repot.

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It is currently in a 3-4 gallon pot. As shown, the tree has leans to one side. I repotted it in November while erecting the greenhouse. It seems quite happy, but as everything was getting jostled during the move, the lean is now worse than before.

So, I'm planning on moving to a well drained 20 gallon trash can. I've got 6 potted this way.

It is a new year. I'm ready to try something new. I've been using Miracid (30-10-10) and Miracle Grow all-purpose (24-8-16). I would mix 1 tablespoon of either in 2.5 gal and spread 5 gallons among 7 trees once a week. The trees seemed to like the Miracid, but were rather unimpressed with the 'all-purpose'. In particular, I was unable to get my sunquat, dancy or clementine to set fruit. Lots of blossoms, lots of 1/8" inch fruit, but almost nothing 'set'. Meanwhile, the dancy and sunquat have been unable to grow vertically. The dancy is propped up with stakes. The sunquat looks like a ground hugging juniper. The sunquat was most peculiar. It would put out a burst of new growth, including blossoms. When there were a few baby fruit, it would stall. Blossoms and baby fruit would wither and fall off. The satsuma put out a few new leaves, but never blossomed. In a summer heat wave, it lost much of the new growth. Effectively, it changed very little during 2006.

Don't get me wrong, though looking like 'stalled' trees, everything is healthy and green.

I'm willing to try Millet's potting mix formula.
"After properly pre-soaking and then pre-treating the CHC's with CaNO3 and MgSo4 during the last rinse I then blend my growing medium mixture usually one cubic foot at a time. I start with the basic mix of 4 parts CHC (1/4 or 1/2 inch chips or a mix of the two sizes) to one part peat moss and to this basic mixture I add the following ingredients per 1-cubic foot:

.57-lbs. (258-gms) 23-4-8 one year slow release fertilizer.
.48-lbs. (218-gms) Dolomite
.08-lbs. ( 36-gms) Regular water soluble fertilizer w/o trace minerals.
.08-lbs. ( 36-gms) STEM (Soluble Trace Element Mix)

Blend entire mixture well. I then begin my regular fertilizer applications one month after transplanting the tree into the above medium."

STEM formula:
http://www.scottsprohort.com/_documents/tech_sheets/H4078STEM.pdf

Best discussion of STEM
link

I couldn't find the STEM but Millet has offered to send me some. After emailing Millet, I came across stressbaby reporting she found a similar product: Scotts Micromax (probably in 50 lb bag).
link

I'm still puzzled by the 'regular water soluble fertilizer w/o trace minerals'. In my case, the 'regular' stuff is the 'all purpose Miracle Gro. Is that guess correct?

I'll do some shopping during the rest of the week and see what I can find in the way of dolomite, calcium nitrate (CaNO3) and the 23-4-8 slow release fertilizer (or 6-1-2). I've got CHC and epsom salt.

Here are my plans for the cation exchange.

The well drained trash can has been sitting out in the yard, at my roof's drip line. It is half full of 1/2" CHC (10 gal) which was well rinsed was rinsed 3 or 4 times when I got it 2 years ago.

Here is the current plan:
1. Move the CHC into a solid bottom trashcan and cover with fresh water. 2. Throw in 2 table spoons of epsom salts and let it soak for a day.
3. Move the CHC back to the drained trashcan.
4. Wash the CHC with fresh water by covering the CHC in water and waiting for the water to drain (hour or two)
5. Repeat #4
6. Mix in the above additives: (10 gallons is approximately 2 cubic feet)

zzzz, if you purchased your CHC from the Crystal Company they have already been washed once and pressed dry, but you will still need to pretreat them. Here is what I do per 1 cubic foot of CHC.

1. Rinse 5-minutes
2. Soak in pure water over night.
3. Rinse 5-minutes
4. Cation Exchange soak in CaNO3 and MgSO4 over night.
5. Ready To Use (No rinse after the CaNO3/MgSO4 soak).

Millet

Ok, we are back to work on this project. Millet's CaNO3 and STEM arrived a few days ago (Thanks Millet!).

Step 1: rinse the CHC. Well, that's been done over the last few months. The CHC was washed two years ago, and has been out in the yard for 2 months. For the last week, it has been raining.

Step 2: cation exchange. Details, details, details...

Puzzle: How much Calcium Nitrate? in topic 334, Millet writes: "You only need 3-grams per gallon in final rinse of CHC's". But, I don't have a scale, so how much is '3-grams'? Elsewhere on the web, someone ran an experiment on this subject and discovered the following ratio: 10-12 grams of salt per level tablespoon. I ended up adding 7 gallons of water (21 grams CaNO3 recommended), so I added 2 tablespoons of CaNO3. As for Epsom salt, there was a recommendation of 1-2 tablespoons per gallon. I used 3 (.5 tablespoons per gallon). Note that the '7 gallons' is for the additional water I'm adding to the already soaked CHC. Since the was 10 gallons of CHC, there is a total of 17 gallons in the barrel right now.

The watery mix will soak overnight. I stirred it up with a broom handle before calling it a night.

BTW, I described repotting this tree back in Mar 06 at
link

Unfortunately, this isn't pure 1/4-1/2" CHC. Over the last 2 years, some potting mix and peat got thrown into the barrel. I'm going to call it 'the mix' and skip adding additional peat.