Crashing Tiger Scorched Dragon
The last week has been slow torture as I watched my
prized tiger/dragon 846 Calai, crashing and burning in
slow motion before my eyes - all of it from my
stupidity.
First it came down with a bad case of Anthracnose, a
fungal disease that attacks new leaves. Each day for
the last week I've watched the next set of new leaves
on the vines wither, and burn. It's seriously affected
over a hundred leaves already. I missed one cycle of
spraying on this plant because it had showed no signs
of problems and now I'm paying the price. I amputated
three badly infected secondaries and cringed as the
tiger howled and the dragon roared.
Then I noticed that the large 24" leaves in the center
of the plant were collapsing under their own weight.
Every day for the last week several more have
nose-dived. The cause - overfertilization and under
pruning caused the leaves to grow so tall (3') and
large they can't hold themselves up.
I've never had a plant put out a secondary every 16'
on each side of the main vine or have such large
leaves. I'm pruning every other secondary now trying
to keep at least 2 1/2 feet between the secondaries to
give the leaves some breathing room.
The plant has been badly scorched and hurt but the
dragon lives and will shake this off. The first fruit
pollinated on a secondary hit 20" circumference today
in 8 days. The fruit 13' out on the main vine is a
day younger and hit 17" circ. at seven days. They are
both pushing 2 or three inches a day.
My 983 Ciliberto is not far behind at 18" circ. in 8
days and growing 3" a day the last two days.
I've started a web cam of sorts on the Dragon Calai.
I'm setting it up on the fruit 13' out on the main
vine. It will update once a day so you can watch the
dragon in action. I'm betting on 25" circ. or better
on day ten. You can find the Dragon Cam at:
http://home.pacbell.net/diana_do/cam/dragon.htm
vince,
best 789, 2000
zone 9, the dragon zone
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