Re: Transplanting Citrus

Kurt,

In future, if you have the luxury of time to do a big tree transplanting job as a two step process, I would suggest that you dig the side trenches first and then water and fertilize to encourage new root growth within the remaining rootball, wait 4 to 6 weeks, and then undercut the rootball.  If the soil texture is too sandy or loamy to hold together, then you should wrap the rootball in burlap or plastic or canvas and tie it off, to hold the rootball together when moving it.

If the tree is sizeable, you may need several people to lift it out of the hole and replant it.  With truly large trees, a commercial landscape contractor will actually side box and then underbox the tree prior to moving it, and use a crane to lift the tree.  I've used this process over here in Riyadh to move and relocate 40 foot tall Ficus altissima, F. religiosa and Delonix regia trees, and not lost a tree yet.

Most arborists would suggest holding off on thinning out a relocated tree until it indicates to you which parts of the tree have been most affected by the root loss, as you really have no way of knowing this until damage appears.  However, crown reduction in advance of your tree moving can be advantageous, and will trigger the tree into pushing new growth more quickly upon being relocated.  You would need to do this again a month to 2 months before moving the tree, and possibly concurrently with sidetrenching the roots.

For your situation now, I'd suggest keeping the tree shaded with possibly 50 % shade cloth to reduce water loss, if it's already hot where you are, and provide wind protection as well, if you are subject to hot drying winds.  Half strength liquid fertilizer after a couple of weeks probably wouldn't hurt either.  You may get more technical advice from others, but these are all common sense steps that you can take to help any large transplanted tree/shrub get re-established.  Some plants have better times of the year to be moved as well, but with citrus, I'd say that early spring about mid-March is probably as good a time as any, in your area of northern California.  Hope your trees survive.

David Feix

K1MIZE@aol.com wrote:

All:

I'm looking for advice from anyone who might have experience moving mature
citrus trees. I recently dug up and moved two 12 year old standard
(non-dwarf) citrus trees--a "Moro" blood orange and an "Owari Satsuma"
mandarin. I tried to get as many roots as I could, but most of the soil came
off when I pulled the trees out of the ground. I pruned off 1/2 to 2/3 of
the top growth. I replanted them almost immediately, and have kept them
well-watered and heavily mulched. It has been two weeks, and the poor things
are looking pretty sad. They lose more leaves every day. The new growth on
the mandarin is still perky, but virtually all of the new growth on the blood
orange has shriveled to a crisp. Was I wrong to think I could transplant a
mature citrus tree? Has anyone had success at this sort of thing? Should I
have pruned off all of the to! p ! ! growth? Thanks in advance for any advice you
can offer.

Kurt Mize
Stockton, California
USDA Zone 9


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