Mike...there are many options; the one that you are using works well. There is also the Bonsai or semi Bonsai... cut the tree and the root and keep in the same container. I am not a container grower, so I am a poor person to give you advice. My limited experience with container citrus is that I always go to a bigger pot. I have no experience or knowledge about root pruning.

I have been potting up as soon as root show at any of my drain/vent holes. I just move the tree over to a much larger pot so I can just pour the new soil around the old root base and not desturb it. I also rase the tree a good bit above the old soil line and cone the new soil up to the old level. this tends to keep the water out to the 'drip line. and keeps the roots headed outward from the trunk. I planted deep rooting plants at the periphery of my meiwa tree to mop up the extra water the meiwa can't use. I foliar feed my meiwa to compensate for the food grabbing watermelons aggressiveness. It appears to have worked well.

Steve

Hey, Mike! You know how I feel about root pruning, lol. I am ALL for it for container grown plants. But I totally 'get 'that most people are nervous about it.

It's a very, very simple process. And it is incredibly rejuvenating for the plant. For every sharp cut of a fine root, many new root shoots will grow behind that cut. This reaction is normal, it's powerful, and it's swift.

Forget the bonsai connection. It's not particularly useful for this discussion. The most important thing to remember is that pruning is a growth STIMULATING exercise....whether the top growth or the roots.

I feel that a bit of root pruning should be done automatically when potting up, too. It will encourage the development of a healthy flush of brand new roots to inhabit the new real estate, so to speak.

A little off the bottom and a little off the sides....just like a hair cut!

Wow trianglejohn that looks like a great idea!!!
Maybe you should market that some how.

I forgot to mention that I line the "cage" with landscape fabric. I saw somewhere that a gardener (not a research scientist) was complaining about those fabric pots on the market. He was showing how plants grown in them suffer because the outer edge where the most root activity is dries out too fast and stunts the growth of the tree. Because most of my large trees are citrus which like to dry out between waterings so far this hasn't been a problem. For the guavas I use 35 gallon recycled plastic tubs sold at the farm store to be used as horse feed storage tubs. I just drill holes in them with a wood bit.

I tend to wet the top surface of the media in these cage pots when I walk around the greenhouse watering and then once a week I like to really soak them. Some of my plants would like for me to stand there all day and watering them (tree ferns) but a man's gotta go to work.

I want to try a cage pot without the fabric and see if small creeping plants will grow on the outside wall of it and maybe harbor beneficial insects that help with the pest problems or at least suck up some of the extra water.

My trees although in pretty good size pots are not in the final pot that i want them to be in. Im going for atleast a 20 gallon pot. So what I am doing is removing the bottom 1/4-1/3 of the roots, teasing the sides and placing into the next size pot.

Mike

My trees are in the largest pot possible the
width of my greenhouse door not a inch to
spare.So I know it is inevitable
the root pruning.Funny the plants that
are in the tightest are doing the best.
They are growing and fruiting very well.
When I see a major decline of the tree
or roots surfacing then I will do the root
pruning.I also don't have to worry
about over watering but I cannot go anywhere
longer then 2 days.Fertilize a liitle every time
you water you can't go wrong especially the
tighter the pot.

Wrong name

This post was edited by poncirusguy on Wed, Sep 4, 13 at 14:38

i deleated this because I use the wrong name

This post was edited by poncirusguy on Wed, Sep 4, 13 at 14:37

orangelime1 I got the wrong name. I ment to use trianglejohn instead

Steve

trianglejohn I have tried twice to use your name for my above statement and ended up with orangelime1.

Apologies for the errored posts

I'm a little surprised that so many think of it as a last ditch resort, when in truth, it is such a benefit to normal, healthy plants. Root branching, which follows root pruning in a matter of hours /days, multiplies the effective surface area of water and nutrient absorption by hundreds fold.

Such a simple procedure followed by great results. Oh well. I tried! :-)

rhizo - the world is full of people that are flat out terrified to prune the plants in their gardens. I meet people all the time that have a 'crisis' going on in their flowerbeds and the solution is usually "just prune it!" It scares them to death. And I get comments from fancy pants landscapers that question my placement of a tree or large shrub. They're concerned about its final size dominating the space. They ignore the fact that the 'final size' won't happen for 20 years and that I will change my mind a million time before that day comes. I can always prune things to keep them in line. I grow a lot of vine crops (kiwi and grapes). You can't get a decent harvest if you don't control where the fruiting spurs are. You pretty much have to always have your pruners in your pocket while you walk around the garden.

Poncirusguy - its the mother ship causing interference!

Wow everyone, such a bunch of different avenues to take..

It's strange to see how everyone differs on their view of the roots and to see what each one does to keep their trees as healthy as can be....Thanks for sharing:-)

Rhizo, I'll take you up to the task whether it be in the next coming spring or these next few days..I need your help and your encouragement and good teachings have given me much more courage to sort of..Dig in..

Thank you

Mike

i think the main thing that scares me is the fear of taking too much or cutting the wrong root, as a newbie to gardening it scares me to loose one of my trees as i only have a few and would hate to kill an innocent tree due to lack of experience. i recently transplanted and pruned my trees though, of three that i root pruned one has taken very well, the other two apear to be dieing and im not sure what to do in the event i took too much :/

one of the trees i root pruned was a fig tree around 2 and a half feet. its odd because it was the tree i took the least from but after this it lost every leaf and has had absolutly no new growth. to mee it looks dead but im not sure how to tell if it really is dead or not, the tree was doing well before this and had just gave me two delicous figs. this is the perfect example of why i was scared to touch it. the lady at the store told me that in winter it would loose its leaves and appear dead but it was just dormant and im not sure if this could be part of the cause because we had some cold nights last week. it gets around 10 hours of sun a day (about 5 hours direct light) and our average temperature is 25c during the day and 16 at night but the cold nights i refered to got down around 8-10c. its in gritty mix and gets wattered every second day with mg fertalizer 12-4-8 with micros. (just to provide some background info)

(i realize this should go under the fig forum but since i was following this thread and it was related to root pruning i figured id share my story)

and ps i only touched the tree at this time of year because i switched all my plants to the gritty mix and seen the trees roots were taking up every inch of the pot and then some. i keopt the original 10" pot.... any advice as to where i went wrong would be a great help for next time. thanks

chris

It is highly unlikely your tree is dead. Fig tree are genetically coded to loose their leaves if it appears there will be a long term shortage of water. I have lost all my leaves several times because what I thought was wet soil was dry instead. Don't worry. Day are shortening at a fast rate and your tree may have turned in early for the winter.

Lots of people here grow figs. Post a pic and we'll look.

Steve

thats a weird defence mechanism against a drought you think the tree would try to hold onto everything it had as a reserve energy source. how long can it survive with no leaves? and since im planing to keep it inside for the winter (and have no cold dark places in my appartment to keep it dormant) will it come back to or does its internal clock just know to wake up in spring? and if it is dormant should i still be watering it?

apparently my picture was more then 500kb so i cant upload it.... i guess my camera is too good but i can email you some pics if youd like... im not sure how to upload more then 1 per post either so that might be better.

Fig trees are desert trees. They grow when conditions are good and shut down when growing conditions are bad. This pertains to wet and dry seasons and not summer vs winter. Let it rest and keep the soil from getting real dry, but don,t flood it. Go ahead and send the pics.

Hey Mike. Root pruning was a little nerve racking for me but I have done it with tropical fruits. I root pruned a mango tree, and yes, I was nervous but it worked just fine.

I have not tried this on any of my citrus trees yet but my 'OroBlanco' grapefruit will probably be the first I tree I try it on. When I did it to my mango, I used a sharp knife and cut off 1/3 of the entire root ball. The only other thing I did was moved the tree to shade for a few weeks to recover, and the tree was fine. I would think it would be the same for citrus also.

When I do this to my 'Oro Blanco', I will let you know how the tree does.

Andrew

I don't know about all or most other citrus; but for Meyers the ideal balance of tree to roots is 4 to 1 by weight; so perhaps if you prune the roots, you should also prune the top at the same ratio if they are doing well when you start. I do know that in most bonsai plants you prune the root and the tree at the same time.

Hey John, your absolutely right, and I feel stupid for not mentioning that you MUST prune the tree itself. If you don't the tree won't have the root mass it needs to properly provide the water and nutrients to the tree.

Mike, I saw that your tree has fruits on it. If it were me, I would wait until the fruits ripened. I would be pretty upset to see the fruit drop at this point.

Andrew

I had a meyer lemon tree in the ground that was nearly dead....i pruned it really hard....my neighbour thought i would kill it........it went absolutely balistic!,,,,,,this was in nz...last year it had more fruit on it than leaves....I will try to post a link.
If you prune the roots in pots...then you need to prune some top growth too....so its in balance so to speak....If you just root prune....the top growth could suffer.

Hope you guys can see this
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=446497018723680&set=pb.100000901567105.-2207520000.1378226650.&type=3&theater

My sweet lee tangerine has just been transplanted with a root prune so It could fit my 4.5 gallon bucket.

{{gwi:606402}}
seed grown sweet ,lee tangerine tree potted up to larger container.

Click on the picture to see the materials used. in photobucket display

Click on the link below for video on the transplant process

Steve

Here is a link that might be useful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AkMFbhlgB0

This post was edited by poncirusguy on Mon, Jan 13, 14 at 21:26

Mike have you made a decision on potting up. I did a video of the actual transplant of my seed grown sweet lee tangerine tree. I left a link of it in my last entry. You can see how easy it was.

steve

Hey Steve..Yeah I did..

My god friend has been through a lot and soon as she is up and running to be able to focus with me, she is going to walk me through the process..

It can wait and besides, I have more than 6 oranges maturing quite well. I'll just have to make sure I water more often or that someone at work does it for me when I am out..

Thanks for asking and I will take a look at your video wen I get a good chance...Thanks a bunch!

with 25 gallons of citrus mix made up and in the container with a root ball depression in the center completed, I removed the tree and placed it in the depression of its new home and poured 3 gallons of dirt to cover the roots. I watered it in thoroughly to get rid of air pocket. This process took about 1 minute. I did spend about 3 minutes getting good pictures to show how easy this is. Almost no roots were lost on this transplant.

tree dumped out of pot

Seed grown poncirus trifoliata in it's new container.

Steve

This post was edited by poncirusguy on Fri, Sep 13, 13 at 11:11