gerbil

Yeah I don't know about all that Zelly, from what I hear you've got lots to teach and us a lot to learn, besides the days are getting shorter here ;) I'm majorly keen to read more in depth about your old school soil improvement techniques, germination, seed and potting mixes, container sizes etc. but understand the nature of these skills and our society, You should write a book. I hazard corrective suggestions of what to do with other peoples plants primarily 'cause i'm not positive in what i'm talking about and the internet is restrictive. I'm more than happy to get in tune with and or experiment and kill one of my own plants. With insulation, just get creative, small things make big differences, get naked and go outside in winter, sit on the bricks, sit on the lawn and sit on a lump of wood, see which one you'd prefer to be on for an extended period. Simple things like a bubble wrap tree guard allows the early planting of annual summer vegetables. A species may be in a specific spot sitting on bricks during winter and it dies, same species same spot sitting in a styrofoam box, on bricks, sprouts in spring. If you can restrict a major fluctuation, or simply stop a decrease, it possibly could be the difference between life and death, growth or dormancy, deficiency/toxicity or stability. Get as many opinions on it as you can Scarecrow, if you are interested it's probably worth taking it to a couple of quality nurseries. If you find out the root cause and apply the solution, you will progress immensely as a grower, that can't be underestimated or overstated. None of this modern gardening hardware store 'throw this at it' flying blind bullshit, we need to educate ourselves. At the end of the day, we accept that we are sweeping back the ocean with a broom, in potted culture as zelly succinctly stated, and in taking more or less equatorial rainforest species and giving it a view of Antarctica.

A valid point and good information, though given the context it's a relatively arbitrary statement. There is a fair difference having an established root system in the ground in an organic amended clay, compared to a leaching 20L pot with pine bark potting mix sitting on a lawn coming into winter. I can only assume your soil practices from little snippets i've picked up over the years, but i'm waiting on a took the bait answer where you planted the caapi in a compacted corner of non-amended clay where it gets wet and cold where phosphate issues theoretically should show up but don't, so i'm just cheekily getting in first. Min max is one thing, local environmental conditions, how abrupt or erratic is season change, what's the plants nutritional tissue health going into change, whats the potting mix / soil properties and nutrition etc. is a broader context to consider. It could be viral, you get similar looking things in grapes called leafroll that looks like a P, K or Mg problem. No idea if leafroll or similar impacts plants outside of Grapes, but even then it doesn't look right and is a long shot working in that area. Mg to me doesn't fit too well given the very even parallel nature of the pigmentation or necrosis (think it's just all pigmentation at this stage?) Scarecrow, the more information you can give about anything he better, pot sizes, soils mixes, feeding regimes, history of plant health, location etc. Plant diagnosis can be ridiculously hard and even then it can be ballpark theories that fix problems, it's best to eliminate variables before considering an area of possibilities. Deficiency, Toxicity and Availability can all interact making diagnosis difficult and solutions often not as straight forward as we'd like. it is a very complex field. You can get a deficiency of one element due to an excess of another, or simply a deficiency due to lack of presence. pH can increase or decrease availability, creating potential deficiency or toxicity. Sky's the limit and humans will never master a dynamic system, we just attempt to make it logically functional for ourselves, just like taxonomy, doesn't mean shit but is handy. Either way, as an experiment or an irrational practice, i'd be getting some sort of insulation below and around the pot making sure not to restrict drainage, attempt to increase and stabilise soil temperature, below is more important than above so prioritise but don't limit. What do you think it is Zelly?

What you are looking at there is more than likely a Phosphorous 'deficiency' that is caused by cold soil temperatures, which is what is starting to occur in Melbourne at the moment.

Adrian palatable Eileen from Rev Super Pedro

Old Ted

roseii from interbeing bridgesii from Adrian

Seed grown G4 Old Ted

Pach x Psycho0 (PD seedling) Seed Pedro

Seed grown G4 Partial flower set