What's up with my Lattarula?

[FloraFig]

I checked my trees today, and usually the leaves look like this when it's hot. However, it's raining today and it's not looking happy.

The rain didn't seem to bother it in last couple months, and the soil is well draining.

The combination droopy leaves and wet makes me worried though.

Should I take it out of the pot and check the roots? The last time I did that the plant succumbed the next day.

Edit,I wrote this , forgot to post it, went ahead and moved the plant out of the pot. It had some bugs in it: worms, and some type of bug that looked like small black earwigs.
I added some soil and moved it to a different spot, but i fear it's a goner 🥺

[Otis]

Don't give up on it. I'd leave it in a mostly shady area and mist it a few times a day if you can. One of my Lattarula behaved like this earlier this year. I sunk the 5 gal pot in the ground and it slowly turned around after losing about half it's leaves. Good luck.

[FloraFig]

Thank you @Otis
I moved it to a spot with more shade and out of the rain.
If it doesn't perk up in a couple days I probably will airlayer it, if it's not to late.

[PacNorWreck]

If there are indeed pests in the soil, you might consider submerging the entire root ball in a trash can of water or other large water vessel - drown all the pests. I’m not sure how long is required, but I’ve heard of plants being left to soak overnight without serious issues (so long as your soil will drain well after you take it out of the water).

[FloraFig]

The worms I'm not worried about, they are beneficial. But the earwig type of bug was odd. I removed most of the old soil, added fresh soil. But maybe I should submerge it.

I just try not to mess with it to much.

[tinyfish]

Did your plant have a good rootball when you took it out of the pot?

If your plant has a good rootball what is your watering schedule like? Could your fig have needed a watering even though it was raining out. Once they start to grow and get a lot of leaves they need a lot of water.

[FloraFig]

The rootball was decent, It probably needs a bigger pot soon,but it could have done fine in the one it is now.

I don't think it needed more water, it has been raining continously. The days it didn't rain I would check the soil to see if it needed water.

[Ktrain]

My Lattarula is a little weepy too, I was thinking the soil was too wet...It is still small though.
The only tissue culture tree I have...growing oddly slow.

hmmm

[FloraFig]

It wasn't weepy before, atleast I didn't notice.now they are litteraly wilting.

[don_sanders]

Weeping in my yard has always meant under watered/too much sun.

Other than cuttings, the only tree I recall over watering that had issues was a 5 gallon that I didn’t water over winter so it was slow to leaf out but I hooked it up to drip with the rest. About a month later when I looked at it again, the base was rotting and borers had attacked it. The base still survived but the whole top was removed.

[FloraFig]

Normally they would do that after a hot day. And by sunset they perk up. The temps dropped a little here last couple days, and it's overcast and continously raining.

[FloraFig]

Would it help if I airlayered it? The trunk close to the soil looks healthy,no rotting or anything like that.
Not right away tomorrow, but if it doesn't recover in a couple days I'm afraid I'm going to loose it.

[TorontoJoe]

It looks sopping wet. How would you feel... all limp and sad. You need to move to a better environment.

If you're willing to give something a try... Change the venue...

OK, assuming the tree is well established with good roots. Get it out of the pot. Gently rinse off the root ball as well as you can. get rid of whatever it's in. Then... take some really good potting mix like ProMix HP, Mix 4 or similar high grade medium. Mix it 5:1 mix to water by volume along with some soluble fert... then repot.

Put the tree into that semi shaded area and wait. Maybe get rid of that lower sucker as well. Keep it out of the rain too if it's been really wet.

Most important is the next step. LEAVE IT ALONE. Don't futz with it every day. Just let it do it's thing and only tend to it if it actually needs something.

[TorontoJoe]

If you can't get promix just get the best potting mix you can find and add perlite until it looks like it makes up 25% or so. Don't knock yourself out.

I think whatever mix you have now, there is a perched water table in your pot. (Google it) . I had this a lot when I tried using pine nuggets in homebrew mix. It can get to a point where the water just sits forever and never dries out. The change of venue is the only thing that helped me.

[FloraFig]

@TorontoJoe,
It does feel soaked more towards the bottom. Funny thing is I did add perlite to the mix that was supposed to be well draining.. Overtime it looks like it was getting sinking and getting compact. That was one thing I had noticed but because they looked healthy and I didn't want to uppot during the hot summer,
I thought/hoped I had a bit more time to correct that.

Lesson learned.

[don_sanders]

If you think you have perched water, you can put the pot on some napkins/paper towels. That will wick the water out.

If you think you have some root root, it might not be a bad idea to remove a majority of the lower leaves.

[TorontoJoe]

FloraFig - I'm looking at your mix and it doesn't look very gritty.... Load up on the perlite. I'd consider this average.



It also makes the pots way lighter.

[FloraFig]

Yes, this has absolutely more perlite then my mix. Alright, time to order bags of perlite and start mixing.

[TorontoJoe]

Again, don't over complicate. Just be gentile with it.

[FloraFig]

Thanks everyone, I appreciate all the input and advice.
however, this morning I checked the plant it was still looking very sad. I took a very close look at the trunk at the base and it had some of the bark looking rotten. Scratched it and it slipped right off.

I went ahead and did an airlayer. I checked my other plants and they seem fine, some of them need uppotting so that's what I'm gonna be doing today.

[PacNorWreck]

Just to show the extreme of how gritty you can go… this is my mix.

[FloraFig]

PacNorWreck, I don't even know where to get 50% of that 😄
Where do you get the clay from?

[PacNorWreck]

don_sanders yeah, I fully admit I’m crazy. But I learned a lot about soils trying to keep citrus alive here in Seattle where they don’t belong and I use this mix for any tree or shrub that is even a little bit fussy or not really “meant” to grow in my cool mediterranean climate.

FloraFig I get the pumice / lava / clays as Bonsai Jack inorganic bonsai soil in the largest quantity they sell. It’s not cheap, but it lasts forever and I don’t have that many figs compared to most here.

[don_sanders]

Lol. No. Not crazy. Just basically the opposite of what I use which some would consider crazy too. 20-25% perlite/rice husks, 40% compost, 40% peat. I use it for everything from figs to lemons to cactus to honeyberries to pawpaws to miracle fruit. Not blueberries though…wouldn’t use it for blueberries.

[Red_Sun]

@FloraFig

A total collapse of perfect healthy fig tree like this points to the roots. It could be bad drainage or extreme heavy media like coco coir. It seems you do not have any of those soil conditions. Then there can be possible serious disease in the roots and soil.

So just be cautious, I would isolate the soil and roots of this plant. Discard any soil from this pot. Not sure if you get enough time for the air layer. Cuttings are more realistic. You may want to get the potting media analyzed to see if there is any disease and pest.

[FloraFig]

@redsun, I checked my other plants, I recall I used two different types of medium. The one I used for this particular plant is much lighter, when I picked up the plant it felt very light. But the soil felt saturated.
The other plants are heavier, due to the saturated medium. I used the Lowes brand potting soil.

I'm not sure what could have attacked the roots of this plant. I thought grubs at first, but there were none when I checked the roots. Only the earwig type of bugs.

It really sucks, this plant was doing great and then this.

[Red_Sun]

I do not think it is the medium itself. I've used 100% heavy clay garden soil and 100% light pine bark fine, both no problem. So I can only say the roots are drowned or attacked by serious insects or diseases. If bark is rot, it probably wont' come back. The good thing is that Lattarula is not a "rare" kind. You can replace it easily. But you need to figure out just why this happened.

[FloraFig]

@redsun, I've been checking the soil today. When I uppotted the plants the soil was up to one or 2 inches from the rim. The medium of the plants I uppotted 6 months ago is now halfway the planter. It looks like it got very compact at the bodem. Not an expert, but I can see where that's smothering the roots causing them to rot.

The earwigs I found are apparently attracted by decomposting matter, which is the rotting roots in this case.

If it wasn't to hot, I would put the trees inground. It seems they do better inground then in pots. And saves me stress.