Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

That's spectacular news. I'm so excited, I wish my roots would grow faster! Kidding ... but really. Thnx Ron

Okay, so my Asian pear tree went dormant, so I decided to clean up it's roots. When I pulled it out of the growbed, it was a stinking mess. Again, with trees you most certainly want to clean all the soil off of the root ball.

After much cleaning, and de-tangling, I got the root ball to this state

There were many black and rotten roots in the center that just came off by pulling them out. Hopefully new better roots will form in the center. I then trimmed the roots down to this state.

While I was in the growbed, I noticed the chard plant had some bad roots too, so I trimmed those off as well. I washed the gravel off and put everything back. We shall see how it goes next spring huh?

hhmmm

that doesn't look healthy at all.

If it was a bonsai i would recommend a healthy dusting with sulfur before going back into the pot. Probably not the right remedy for aquaponics.

Perhaps increase the length of the dry cycle?

The amount of soil I removed should help, I would imagine. The roots were considerably nicer than they were before I cleaned them up. Those pics were also taken at night. It is on a siphon, so the dry time is dependent on the siphon. But the tree itself is not very deep, which means it does have a lot of dry time. What was interesting, however, was that there were some newer white roots forming just a little higher than the nebari.

Time to dredge up an old thread! How are your trees doing now, Ron? Anybody else?

I lost one of my dwarf trees in January during a 46degC heatwave in Perth. The others took a beating but has recovered well. I'll post a picture and an update over the weekend.

My cherry trees are starting to blossom. Ended up pulling the Asian pear last summer. Replaced it with a bare rooted asian pear tree last month. It is starting to bud. Lime tree is good, lemon okay, grapefruit could be better as it has been fighting off some insects. My investment into the grapefruit has been little however as its fruit is not as tasty as I would like. I suppose that is what you get when you don't research the flavors of different types of grapefruit and just buy whatever happens to be at the big box stores. That os one good reason to support smaller local nurseries. They will have the local knowledge of what is appropriate for your climate, and a sense of what tastes good.

Have you l looked at companion planting? I mean obviously a lot of it isn't valid for ap(many pairings are based off of nutrients) but there are plants that repel insects, and others that are more attractive than your fruit, so maybe you could grow some flowers in around your fruit trees to keep the bugs off?

I have nasturtium growing in the soil around my grow beds.

Interesting. You could try ger pesticide derived from geraniums. I know chrysanthemum is used for bugs too.

Lady bugs work just fine for me

Geraniol*
That's true, I'm planning on releasing a praying mantis into my greenhouse. I was just thinking if your grapefruit is do plagued...