So I have these 2 little Preto plants.  Everything was going well for months.  They sprouted a few leaves and some were even fairly large.  They started to throw out a main crop, but I pinched them in hopes to save energy as they were just rooted in November or December. It has been about a month and a half (I think) since I pinched the fruit. Once I did that the plants started to drop beautiful green luscious and healthy leaves here and there.  I figured they got stressed and were trying to sort things out. Fast forward to today. Both of these plants have dropped all their leaves and they were all green and healthy looking (FMV was barely noticeable, they were looking great).  There is no indication of root rot, nothing is drying up or wilting, they just dropped all their healthy leaves.  I REALLY want these trees to survive because they are from Tyro, and he has a gorgeous strain that, until recently was growing relatively vigorously.  What should I do?

Hugs*

Sounds like a classic sign of to much moisture in the soil. Check the trees roots out and see if they are rotting. If so you will have to cut rot off and start over. Roots die and can't send moisture up to leaves. Richie from louisiana

Richie,

Usually when the roots die don't the leaves wilt or get droopy? Here in this case the leaves looked beautiful and never wilted before they dropped.  Do you still think that this is too much water in soil and root rot? In the past when I had root rot issues the leaves looked like crap.

Preto, like a lot of tougher varieties to root have a stalling period. I also had one I rooted from tyro and right around this time, it stalled on me and didn't start growing again until late summer. I thought it had died on me a few times. So, if the stem where the leaves were are green and healthy, keep it barely watered for the roots. And if you are able, take it outside, above 60/70, and bring it inside if it's lower than 60 or so. Good luck, hope this helps.

Check the roots like Richie said. They are so fragile at that stage. Preto is very tough as I can attest as I have had only a few make it to uppotting stage. These are all from Tyro also. He has a good way of rooting them you should reach out to him. Here's one I shifted to a 3 gallon.

I'll check the roots and update you all.  They did have some nice ones, but maybe they got over-watered or died.  The cutting still looks fresh and healthy so worst case, I'll just re-root them.   Thanks

I have to agree. Very hard too root. I dont know if the roots,are wet and died but i would check at least one so they can be saved. Maybe just stalled. I have a martinenca rimada that took 1 year 1/2 to take off it would also loose leaves. I have thought it died many times but just last month it looks like a normal tree growing very fast. So you never know

Hi Mario,

It's difficult to assess what you've got going there without a photo.As has been noted,most people find Preto more difficult to root than other varieties.They can have a tendency to stall out and sulk.Here's a photo of a couple that will not get with the program<G>.

Got 2 JH Adriatics doing this..nice little green leaves...cant wait till spring to chuck them Outside (in the shade)...maybe in 10 days in this area...

Thanks for the input.  I've had no issues getting the Pretos to root, they did just great. I took some pics of the roots from one and I think they look fine... maybe not? I posted 2 pics so you guys could look at it.  I have them in tiny 3 inch pots, so maybe it was root-bound.  Check it out and let me know what you think.


 

Hey I think it looks fine. I bet you throw it in a gallon pot with some fertilizer it will take off.

Moving on up. I'll keep you posted. Thanks.

I rooted an alleged Preto last spring. I mistreated it thru various experiments and it nearly died, pulled through, and then stalled for over a month, never losing its lone leaf. Then it grew more later in summer. We expect it to do well this summer. My 5 year old preto from Encanto purchased as a 1-gal grew like crazy its first year and hardly at all the last four years. It crowds a good amount of excellent fruit each year on relatively little growth. One of my favorites. I think yours will pull through, just be good to it. Richie would agree that Floralicious Plus is a great supplement to good fertilization.

I am experiencing very similiar circumstances with the two little preto cuttings I rooted this past November.. I've anxiously watched over them since they rooted and boy they have been giving me scares the whole time.. The first one that rooted was very slow to put on leaves and then completely stalled on me & lost the one leaf it had! For two months it stayed bare & I thought it was a gonner for sure! I found that I had definitely overwatered it & have since really tried to restrain myself where watering is concerned.. FINALLY it grew a new leaf and is now working on a second one :) Lol I was delighted when I saw that so Im trying not ruin the progress its finally beginning to make. I think the roots in your pic look great, dont give up on it.. With time & patience I believe it will be just fine.. Good luck with it!

Hi,
The stem looks fine.The roots look fine. But I'm curious : how did you get the medium out of the roots ? What kind of dirt are you using ?
At that point, I would be using dirt from the nurseries ... but that's me .
I would pot it up in dirt from the nurseries for that little thing to have more nutrients to feed on.
Good luck !
For the leaves, perhaps an opened door and a cold breeze got the leaves ...
It could be from over watering too. So stop watering until the medium gets really dry/light and then just a little cup of water, until the medium etc...

I had one two years ago do that. I thought it was lost and when April or May came since it had no leaves left, I put the pot in the garden.
The little things wanted to hang on to life, and bounced back. It is a nice little tree by now.
In the future, try to avoid bare-rooting your trees like that as that may shock them (so not helping them).
To remove excess humidity just put the pot on a newspaper or a paper towels and let it drain.

[QUOTE=jdsfrance] I'm curious : how did you get the medium out of the roots ? What kind of dirt are you using ?
[/QUOTE]

For the little trees I use coco and pearlie mixture I mix myself. When the weather warms up, I up-pt them with a coco/pearlite/potting soil mix. 

[QUOTE=jdsfrance]
At that point, I would be using dirt from the nurseries ... but that's me .
I would pot it up in dirt from the nurseries for that little thing to have more nutrients to feed on.
[/QUOTE]

I agree that would be ideal, but the trees are indoors until the weather permits and I am afraid of fungus gnats.   It only takes a couple and next thing you know it is a big problem.  Right now I supplement the mix with Dyna-Gro or Miracle Grow. I up-potted them last night.
[QUOTE=jdsfrance]  So stop watering until the medium gets really dry/light and then just a little cup of water, until the medium etc...
I had one two years ago do that. I thought it was lost and when April or May came since it had no leaves left, I put the pot in the garden.
The little things wanted to hang on to life, and bounced back. It is a nice little tree by now.
In the future, try to avoid bare-rooting your trees like that as that may shock them (so not helping them).
[/QUOTE]
That is encouraging. I have my fingers crossed and hope that my story sends up like yours :)
I usually let my mix get fairly dry, but if there are trees that suck up a bunch of water daily, then they get watered more.  These Pretos were one of those trees that continuously sucked up water. They stopped sucing up a bunch of water right about the time the leaves started dropping off.  Accordingly, I stopped watering them as much. 

The thing about coco is that the top dries out and turns color, but that may or may not be an indication of the soil underneath. Sometimes the soil get VERY dry if you aren't careful. Do you think that it will be okay if the coco gets super dry? If so then I'll let it get that way before I re-water.  Please advise.

I usually never bare root trees but I only bare-rooted this one to adequately inspect the roots and trunk, otherwise I would have been guessing.  The other one was left in the medium and up-potted as-is. 
[QUOTE=jdsfrance]
To remove excess humidity just put the pot on a newspaper or a paper towels and let it drain.
[/QUOTE]
The coco drains well, and the soil is never saturated to the point where paper towels could wick anything from the bottom.


As always, THANKS to everyone for helping me out and advising me.  You are so wonderful!

[QUOTE=tyro]Hi Mario,

It's difficult to assess what you've got going there without a photo.As has been noted,most people find Preto more difficult to root than other varieties.They can have a tendency to stall out and sulk.Here's a photo of a couple that will not get with the program<G>.

[/QUOTE]
Paul, good to hear from you.  I'll do my best to give these little trees a chance for success.  Maybe they are taking a break and will get with the program when Spring is in full swing.
:)

SuperMario:It seem to me that your plant has root nematodes.
I see a few nodules there,and that might be why it dropped leaves!.
I am not sure of that because the pix is small,but ,it is only an opinion,and i fill sorry to tell you bad news.

If it does end up being nematodes, this is a setback but you can proceed without buying a new tree. The good news is that nematodes only affect the roots. 

Isolate the tree and let it grow until you can get cuttings. Don't pinch it and don't allow it to produce fruit. Try not to not take cuttings that grow too close to the soil, or else you're at a risk for contamination. 

I once got a VdB that was infested with rkn nodes. I tried to chop all of the roots off the main trunk, give it a hot water soak (125F or something - don't remember anymore) and spritz it with a bleach solution. That didn't work for me, but I'm not an expert and probably made mistakes along the way. The main trunk rooted but the rkn were still present and the new roots grew with nodes. 

All of the cuttings from higher up on the tree worked perfectly and continue to grow vigorously. 

If you want to double check on whether your tree has nematodes, please take a high res photo of the root ball. Also, don't go poking around in the other figs after touching infected soil. I *always* wash my hands with soap and hot water, and then rub them with ~90% rubbing alcohol to sterilize them if I suspect I was touching soil infested with nematodes.

Herman and Levar,

It is hard to tell from the pic, and I did re-pot the plant so I won't be re-checking it.  Maybe it is nematodes, but when I inspected the roots I didn't notice any nodules. However, I definitely could have overlooked them if they were only a couple little ones on there.  I'll see if the plants recover, take cuttings and re-root new ones.  Hopefully this was a stall-out situation due to root bind or stress from pinching the fruit, but if it is nematodes then I'll follow everyone's advice. 

THANKS AGAIN!

Whatever you do, don't give up on it.  It may simply need the summer heat and some fresh soil.
A couple years ago I rooted a Preto over the winter and eventually appeared dead.  I transferred it to a SIP and after a bout 2 months, it came back to life.