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Post by max3732 on Feb 11, 2018 12:34:48 GMT -5
I live in South Florida and have 4 cocoa trees total. In previous years I've been able to get 1 or 2 pods on them, but last year with Hurricane Irma and the cold I didn't get a single one. I know you should be able to get more than 1 or 2 pods on a tree and I was thinking the problem may be that I need to prune them. They're getting new leaves and starting to grow as things are warming up and getting back to normal. As you can see from the picture my biggest 2 are about 15 feet tall and branch out once at the bottom and also fork out a few times on top. I head that it's better to keep them smaller, but at this point how do I do that without removing all the leaves from the top? Wouldn't that potentially kill the trees? Also, should I leave the secondary fork at the bottom or should I only have 1 main trunk? Do you see any other areas I can trim? Should I break the pot away at this point? The trees are about 10 years old.
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Post by bmikiten on Feb 13, 2018 22:27:27 GMT -5
Are you getting flowers? There have been some concerns about the insect population after the storm. Check your soil pH as well before you consider any pruning.
Brian
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Post by max3732 on Feb 14, 2018 18:14:38 GMT -5
Are you getting flowers? There have been some concerns about the insect population after the storm. Check your soil pH as well before you consider any pruning. Brian No flowers yet this year, but in all previous years they were covered with flowers. The younger trees would even form pods without me, but none of the pods on the younger trees lasted more than a few weeks. I've hand pollinated dozens of flowers that have started and look fine and then just wilt within a few weeks. It seems like once they grow to a certain size they don't wilt or have other probelms. There is a garden near me with cocoa trees and I've noticed they have some black wilted pods along with a lot of healthy ones. What should the soil pH before for these trees? Any other action I can take to help improve yield?
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Post by Sebastian on Feb 24, 2018 9:38:26 GMT -5
Your soil nutrition will be very important - i can't advise you on the particulars of what the macro/micro nutrients need to be, but ensure you're in a well fertilized (and well drained) soil matrix. You should *always* remove black pods from the tree as soon as you see them, and discard the far away from the tree, lest they infect other healthy pods.
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Post by bmikiten on Mar 11, 2018 16:39:10 GMT -5
If I remember correctly, soil pH for the trees should be around 6.5. I've noticed that with three pH meters I get slightly different readings. Pay attention to the manufacturer's instructions and also the soil moisture and depth as this can affect your readings as well.
Brian
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