Hi & welcome to Gardenweb!

I don't know anything about your plant specifically, but overall it looks like the roots are struggling in heavy, soggy soil. But it also looks like the overall weakened condition has allowed other "stuff" to go wrong with it too.

Is it hardy where you are? Isn't it a baby tree of a fruit-bearing giant? That's not usually the kind of thing you can grow in a pot inside because of the insufficient light, but from the pics I can't tell if the plants are in or out, and that's just a generalization that's often successfully broken, just throwing it out there to help get a discussion going on this. So often it takes a wrong suggestion that somebody wants to correct...

Hi,
I actually have four of those little buggers and all of them have had their share of issues including all the symptoms yours has. My plants have quite a bit of plant to plant variation, and it seems like they have varying degrees of hardiness. One of them only grows the inverted curled leaves.
I haven't been able to figure out what is the cause of most of these problems, but I will say that I have found them very sensitive to fertilizers. My new growth was constantly burning. After I realized this, I flushed the soil with several volumes of water and I am careful to use old potting soil when I repot them. That has helped a lot.
Another thing I have noticed is that they can't handle lack of water. Anytime I've neglected them and they start to wilt the tiniest bit between waterings, those leaves are basicaly toast. They'll continue to dry out and drop off.
I'd love to hear how your plant is doing. Not many people grow these.
-Ryan

Hi,
That is definitely Melicoccus Bijugatis. I grew three of them from fruit I brought back from Puerto Rico.

Mine are having the same issues as yours, exact same leaf conditions. As Ryan said, they seem to be very sensitive to watering and fertilizer. I have observed that they don't do well with both over and under watering. Good draining soil is a must. They seem to prefer neutral to basic pH. I tried using some acid fertilizer like I use for my meyer lemon and they didn't like that. They don't seem to like regular miracle grow either. They do seem to respond well to iron/mineral supplement. Has anyone else tried any other fertilizers?

Thanks,
Kyle

Since that post I tried an experiment on one of my two healthier looking plants that seems to be hardier in terms of letting it dry out. Typically I fertilize my other plants with 4x diluted FoliagePro, so I tried giving one of them an 8x dilute (that is 1/8 tsp in a gallon) sip of FP. It took about a week but it lost all of its leaves. I flushed it a few times and babied the seemingly dead, leafless stick for about two months and now it is starting to bud out some new growing tips lower down on the plant.

Kyle, how large are your plants? Mine are from Nicaragua and are about 4 years old and the are still quite small. My tallest one actually seems to be the least healthy. I'm not sure what the secret to growing these is.

sf_rhino, my plants are two years old and the largest is about 27 cm (~10.5 in) tall at the tip of the main stem. They are from a variety that grows near Utuado in Puerto Rico.

I have read that this plant is not necessarily hemaphroditic so I am attempting to play the odds by growing three together and eventually graft the trunks together (not sure if this will work but my space is limited).

I have also observed that these are very sensitive to watering. The area where I got the seeds is a subtropical area. I looked up the average monthly rainfall for the area and, in general, it is subject to periods of heavy and light rain throughout the year. It seems that July and September are the rainy seasons. So I am attempting to mimic this by giving the trees periods of heavy and light watering throughout the year but never so much that the soil gets soggy and always allowing the top inch or so of soil to dry out between waterings. I try to keep the water and soil in a neutral to slightly basic pH range. Still looking for an appropriate fertilizer but they seem to do well with bonide liquid iron. I think I will try a slow release organic fertilizer like espoma. The high acid one does very well for my avocado and citrus trees.

Here is a close up of the leaves.

That one looks very similar to my only remaining "healthy" one. Mine are from the Matagalpa region of Nicaragua which is at about 750m elevation and gets about 1500mm rain/year.

Of my 3 remaining plants; 1 is healthy, 1 is nursing back to health after my diluted-FP experiment, 1 is about 2.5ft tall and unhealthy.

The unhealthy one is the most sensitive to lack of water, and only maintains perhaps 4 leaves at a time. The leaves slowly yellow at the veins/get brown spots/orange aggregates on the surface and then drop. I'll try to get a photo. It occurred to me that perhaps it is chlorine sensitive so I have just recently begun using overnight evaporated tap water and will see what effect that has.

Note-just as I wrote this I decided to look up how effective 24hr evaporation is at removing chorine. To my surprise, SF uses chloramine not chlorine and it does not evaporate overnight. Apparently I need to either filter or boil for 20min to drop the chloramine level... maybe I'll just buy a filter or see if I can use deionized water.

Perhaps I should try watering more in the late summer as you do. What are you using to raise the pH? Did you determine this was good experimentally or did you read it somewhere? Also, you have yours in a window. How much light do yours like? I have kept them away from my windows (south facing) and they seem to like that, however I haven't testing this much.

Thanks!
Ryan

It wouldn't suprise me if the chloramine is causing you problems. My water here in NY is very heavy in minerals and naturally basic while also not having much chlorine by the time it reaches the faucet. The link I'm including describes the tree thriving in mineral heavy soil so I think I lucked out in this respect.

Also I'm using a potting mixture that is roughly 50/50 potting soil and sand. So far so good.

As far as light sensitivity, it seems that the young plants are very sensitive to long periods of direct sunlight. When I had them outside during the summer they would shrivel on particularly hot days. I moved them next to my much larger meyer lemon tree so they were partially shaded and they started to do much better. My guess is that young plants are adapted to growing in the shade of a dense forest. The windows in this room face southeast and southwest but they are double paned low-e so the light coming through is not very intense.

The source also describes the leaves as briefly deciduous. I'm not sure what this means exactly but it suggests to me that the tree will shed leaves periodically. I'm also guessing this coincides with periods of rain and drought so this is another reason I am experimenting with seasonal watering.

Good luck. I'll keep reading and post again when I try my fertilizer experiment.

Here is a link that might be useful: Mamoncillo (Melicoccus Bijugatus)

It wouldn't suprise me if the chloramine is causing you problems. My water here in NY is very heavy in minerals and naturally basic while also not having much chlorine by the time it reaches the faucet. The link I'm including describes the tree thriving in mineral heavy soil so I think I lucked out in this respect.

Also I'm using a potting mixture that is roughly 50/50 potting soil and sand. So far so good.

As far as light sensitivity, it seems that the young plants are very sensitive to long periods of direct sunlight. When I had them outside during the summer they would shrivel on particularly hot days. I moved them next to my much larger meyer lemon tree so they were partially shaded and they started to do much better. My guess is that young plants are adapted to growing in the shade of a dense forest. The windows in this room face southeast and southwest but they are double paned low-e so the light coming through is not very intense.

The source also describes the leaves as briefly deciduous. I'm not sure what this means exactly but it suggests to me that the tree will shed leaves periodically. I'm also guessing this coincides with periods of rain and drought so this is another reason I am experimenting with seasonal watering.

Good luck. I'll keep reading and post again when I try my fertilizer experiment.

Here is a link that might be useful: Mamoncillo (Melicoccus Bijugatus)

Here are some photos of one of the symptoms I see in my unhealthy plant. The leaves start out nice and green and eventually develop these hard crusty spots that do not brush off. The leaf then begins to yellow (some slight discoloration is already happening on these -- more light green spots), given way to the the leaf desiccating and dropping off.

Close up on the spots:

{{gwi:52117}}

So far so good with using water left out overnight... although I need to try filtering the water and give the experiment more time.

This post was edited by sf_rhino on Wed, Oct 9, 13 at 0:07