Kumquat leaves

Kumquat seedling

Mandarin leaves

Mandarin seedling

Kumquat tree specialize in yellow leaves with green veins. They have a hard time pulling zinc and Iron out of the soil. I don't have access to those micro nutrients but I have access to chicken wire. I cut up the chicken wire and soak the pieces in Vinegar to get the zinc and Iron. I also add a TBSP vinegar to a gallon or water formula to lower the PH and all the trees seam to take up the micros much better. Your feed should be closer to 25-5-10 for better results. I add a 30-0-4 grass feed to augment my fertilizers to get close to the 5-1-2 ratio.

Do you flush water through your pots to clean the toxic build up out of the soil. This should be done every month at your temperature. If you have a water softener you will be best to get your water elsewhere.

Citrus trees are tropical, subtropical and need to be in the sun. They will need to be watered more often.

Kumquat trees are very hard to grow on their own roots. I would suggest grafting the kumquat tree to one of your mandarin trees. If you are wanting fruit you will need a very large mandarin tree in a large pot. The kumquat tree is a small enough tree to fruit as a potted tree grown from seed.

Steve

Typical seed grown kumquat with veins in leaf

If you accept my experience with kumquat:
I have grafted a tip of a Fukushu kumquat onto a young orange seedling (about 3-4 months old). In the first pictures, the lower 2 leaves are from orange rootstock, the upper leaf is from kumquat scion.

two months after grafting:
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one week later:
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4 months later, it flowered again:
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A recent picture:
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On lemon rootstock I don't see the yellow leaves with green veins (pictured today):
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What I really like about kumquat is that it's usually flowers every 2-3 months, and fruit ripens in half year (not 1-2 years like lemon or orange).

Thanks for your response, Steve. I couldn’t get 5:1:2 or 9:3:6 fertilisers that some of our fellow forumers are using. 25:18:24 is the closest I could find here and I forgot to mention that I also supplement with fish emulsion which has higher nitrogen. Both FE and seaweed have trace elements. Besides, my potting mix is of medium acidity.

I flushed once a week when I watered the plants, with 3-4 cups of water (approximately 1 litre) per pot. At the end of each week prior to watering, I would check the water level by inserting a wooden stick into the mix. There was about 2 inches of dampness, so I knew the mix wasn’t completely dried out.

The yellowing is getting worse gradually. I am at my wits’ end.

Sophie

Sophie You are flushing your trees too often. That could be the problem. Once a month or less. Add more nitrogen and potassium with lawn fertilizer.

By grafting the kumquat tree on a lemon or orange rootstock as eSilviu did, you can avoid the problem will yellow leaves with green veins. They will grow much faster with fewer insect problem.

I gave up on grafting after about 30 failures I can not assist you with grafting. I am growing the rootstock trees and giving them away as I find new homes for them. I went ahead and planted 2 of my sweetlee tangerine trees from seed in the ground and greenhouse them in the winter.

Steve

Are you following the directions with those fertilizers?

Also, do your fertilizers provide Calcium and Magnesium specifically?

Josh

Not all seed grown citrus trees are problematic. These two which receive the same care as the yellowing ones, are quite healthy. One year old kumquat 2 foot 4 inch tall from soil line and one & half year old mandarin 1 & half foot tall.

Btw, thanks for the suggestion but I'm not into grafting. I enjoy growing trees from seeds.

Hi Josh,

Both the liquid FE and seaweed fertilizers contain calcium, magnesium and many others TE. However, FE has the tendency to lower soil pH probably due to the increased biological activities. FE also contains minute amount of sulphuric acid as preservative. The other higher nitrogen fertilizer that I’m using most probably has some kind of acids in it. My potting mix is slightly on the acidic side. So I guess, the mix has eventually become too acidic despite regular flushing. I will be getting a test kit to confirm my deduction before adding lime.

But why some of the seedlings are still doing well? Perhaps some are able to adapt to the more acidic condition whereas some can’t. Though this may not be beneficial to the trees in long term,

Sophie

This post was edited by citrineorange on Fri, Feb 6, 15 at 6:32

My Meiwa kumquat was looking at its best around 22 months old. She got sick and then took off in September just 6 weeks before hard freezes. I covered her well in glass with an operable vent port. Our temperatures drop to -4F -(20C) and the cover over the vent port blew off. Meiwa looks real bad. Perhaps I am too far north.

One year old meiwa from seed
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The decline it lost all leave but I have no picture

At 2 year and in decline and lost 1/4 of its leaves.
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It grew again in September with 2 water sprout of 2 feet from a mostly dead tree. No pics and then the freeze hit and hit again at _1F and look below.

What ever you are doing is working well. I grew mine in much larger containers and that may be the problem. You tree is near fruiting size and may fruit with in a year or 2.

Two weeks after pH correction.

Sophie

Sophie

What variety of kumquats did you grow from seed?

Steve

Cory,

Yes, the test result from the water run off from the pot was 4. I mixed 2 tbsp of powdered lime with 1 gallon of water and watered the soil. There are new shoots but the old leaves have not shown any sign of improvement.

Steve,

They are meiwa kumquats.

Sophie

Sophie, the old leaves won't improve, but let the plant reclaim nutrients from them and then shed them naturally. The new growth is where the improved color will be.

Josh

Thanks for your response Sophie. You are the 2nd person in just a few days that wrote that their soil mix has turned too acidic. I think I will test mine too.

Cory

A friend of mine gave me some fukushu kumquats & I planted some seeds. Here's the little fellow 6 weeks later:

citrineorange How is your kumquat tree from seed growing now. The original 2 of mine died and I gave my friends seed grown Nagami to a friend. I now have 2 fukushu kumquat trees from seed. They are almost 2 years old and doing much better than my Meiwa