MAY 20, 2007

Current conditions are rough on many types of plants but particularly fruit trees. Avocados, mangoes, citrus and other tropical fruits that bloomed in the early spring now have good sized fruit, but many people are seeing many of those newly formed fruits aborting and falling off on the ground. This is very frustrating to people that love those fruits since we have had at least 2 or 3 years with very small crops due to hurricane damage to the plants.

If the fruits that are dropping off are green or yellow-green in color, this is natural abortion often caused by weather stress or excessive dryness. If the fruits are black, brown or spotted with brown, this indicates a disease problem and means that probably you need to have the tree sprayed to help keep the problem from destroying most if not all the fruit. A common fungicide used for many fruit trees if copper and if sprayed promptly it will keep the problem hopefully from spreading.

To insure that excessive amounts of fruit are not dropped due to dryness, irrigate fruit trees once or twice a week thoroughly, but don't irrigate too often. Citrus is a good example of trees that don't like a lot of water. Too much water on citrus will cause it to abort a large percent of the new fruit and it may also injure the roots to the point of allowing some disease to develop and die back of the top of the tree might occur.

If you need to do any pruning or shaping of your fruit trees, now is a good time to do that to get them in shape for the upcoming hurricane season. Remove any dead wood or weak branches and often thick trees benefit from having some branches removed so the wind can pass through them more easily.

We are fast approaching the time of year for the second major feeding of your fruit trees. Usually June is when this is done but it's OK to do it now if you have the time. Use a good quality fruit tree fertilizer at manufacturer's recommended rates and this will get them off to a good start for our summer growing season.

If you have questions about fruit tree care this time of year, you can always get some valuable free advice from the Palm Beach County Extension Service. Dial 233-1750 in the north and central county area or 276-1260 in the south county area.

GJ/nr