carolinephillips

My orange tree, which had a good crop of seville-like oranges last year, has gone yellow and is losing all its leaves rapidly. There are water shoots sprouting from the main branches, which were green, but they too have lost their leaves. In short, over the past week all the leaves have gone yellow and dropped off- only a few curled up ones remain.

Have I got to get rid of it? It is/was a mature tree. Last year it was very healthy.

carolinephillips

Just closley inspected it. The trunk 2 feet up, above the guard by 6" has chunks of bark coming off all the way round. What could cause that??? Anyway I think that means the tree is now terminal and can't be resurrected by care and attention.

IndieG

Could you post a picture? That will make identifying the problem easier.

If it has yellow leaves with darker green veins then it could be iron deficient. Use some iron chelates. Are the leaves curled up? Then this could be due to citrus bud miner - you could use eco-oil or I can give you a home-made recipe. If there are holes in the tree then that is more serious - could be borers.

carolinephillips

The leaves have mostly fallen off- they are totally yellow and curled up. I am not able to take or post pictures. I think whatever damaged the bark- maybe a wallaby? has killed it.

IndieG

Curled up leaves could indicate a problem due to citrus miner. Just use some organic fertiliser (like Uplift), water well and cover with mulch.

When you see new leaves emerging then use the oil spray. Either Eco-oil or use a cup of ordinary cooking oil+ half a cup of water + a teaspoon of ordinary dish washing liquid. Mix with water in the ration 1 part mixture to 40 parts water, stir well and spray it on the young leaves.

Hopefully that will help...

If the problem is wallabies/possums then I don't really have an answer. Two of our neighbour's trees have been completely ruined by possums. He has tried every trick in the book but no luck so far.

carolinephillips

It had fertiliser a few weeks ago. I think OH will have to fell it, but will give it a few weeks to see if it recovers.
Thanks for the advice though.

Japonica

Interesting to see what it turns out to be.

I was going to post, "maybe it's supposed to do that."

When I was in uni, my roomie and I babysat an orange tree (indoor, potted, obviously) that her best friend had grown from a single seed. It was his baby.

Two weeks after he goes off to Europe, the thing starts dropping leaves. And then more leaves. Pretty soon, it looks like autumn in our apartment, with a six foot tall stick in a pot.

We consulted everyone, including students in the Ag Forestry dept., and one told us that some varieties of orange tree just do that and to leave it and it would bounce back. It did.

Still, we thought we would have to flee the country for killing the guy's pride and joy.

Good luck with yours. Hope it recovers.

IndieG

Noooo, don't fell it unless it is dead wood! Yeah, give it a few more weeks and see how it goes.

mulben

If the barks split diagonally thats a sign of too much water , but if its ringbarked try wrapping the effected area with cloth ,with maybe industrial clingwrap over that so the sap can still move ( this will only work if there is some bark still there )
Otherwise cut the tree at the ring barked line , paint the cut surface and you will get new growth very quickly , just make sure its above the graft line.

Wendy66

We have 9 orange trees - one is very healthy as it gets a lot of water from sprinkler and fruit has been large and it's covered in new tiny oranges at moment it's about 20foot I guess. The others vary from doing ok depending on how much water they get to the couple that get none (had no rain here very dry) have tiny oranges from last year on them still and look thirsty.

I have 2 that are as you mention with the yellow leaves - they are much smaller trees about 5foot, yellow leaves, one of them hardly has any leaves now and trunk looks mouldy - they get very little water. I'm at the point where I think they need to come down as nothing has worked over 2 years.

http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s1397350.htm

http://www.ehow.com/how_5162118_cure...-diseases.html

http://www.ehow.com/list_7499178_com...-diseases.html

carolinephillips

Thanks for the info- my thoughts now are that because of the weather it may have foot rot or something similar. I still think it is too late to save it, but I'll try to be patient and see if it heals.