How To Save An Avocado Tree From Rot

My Hass avocado tree that I purchased recently has been looking bad. It's now dropped its leaves and is showing severe root rot symptoms. But there are still healthy leaves, so there's hope. I've learned that I need to have really well draining soil for my avocado trees. Today I attempt to rescue my Hass avocado tree.

[HeatYT]

I once saved an avocado tree from what I think was root rot. The leaves started dying from the tip first. The branches too had this blight that would creep toward the trunk. I ended up repotting it into a bigger pot. I washed out as much of the old soil as possible and used a tree planting mix in the new pot. I pruned the blighted branches and used pruning seal on them. Finally I applied Agri-fos with a syringe at the base of the trunk. I did this maybe two or three times a week for a few weeks. The tree recovered!

I’m not a gardener and didn’t really know what I was doing. Just grabbed bits and pieces from the internet trying to find a solution. Anything to save that tree. I can still remember how ecstatic I was when I saw that first bit of green leaves starting to grow after my intervention. That was six years ago and the tree is still doing good.

[zoedeparscau]

Maybe try a smaller pot? This will allow the soil to dry out quicker and prevent root rot. Downside is you’ll have to water and repot more frequently as the tree grows... good luck!

[luceabsente]

Your pot needs better drainage...either drill more holes in the terracotta pot, or use a plastic pot with more drainage. Potting mix is also not ideal in the long term because it would decompose; I would recommend 50% sand + 25% perlite + 25% peat moss +/- vermiculite...the ratios would depend on how frequently you would like to water; using 100% washed sand will always be better than potting mix because silicon dioxide would not decompose.

[aepabon]

How’s the tree doing Scott? Wondering if it recovered? Update video coming soon I hope?

[oopsisoiledmyplanties]

You're always so informative! I love watching what you have going on there.

[nicw]

THANK YOU for your channel, I have been growing an avocado from seed for a bit over a year and it's looking very sick. I got a moisture metre which I didn't know even was a thing.. and realised I've been watering it waaayy too much. Yesterday I bought some new soil for it, because I'm a beginner and felt the best thing would be give it some good quality soil. I noticed the roots looked a bit nasty, the old soil felt like it had clay in it and it must have root rot. But it still has some ok leaves up the top. I will take your advice and hoping I can save it since it is not quite as bad as the one here <3

[LisaSavageChristensen]

Thank you for this video. My avocado plant, that I grew from a seed, was doing fantastic for 6 months. Over the last few weeks, it's been droopy, all the leaves have started to brown on then ends to ultimately die and fall off, but new leaves are growing. I suspect root rot, so I just did exactly what was in this video and transfer to a new pot, with better draining soil and I hope it works. The roots seemed pretty well in tact, only had to cut off a couple so I hope I can revive it.

[zoranvlahovic]

Man, thank god for your video. My young avocado started to get rotten leaf tips and i didn t know what to do, but after i took it out of pot i noticed rotten root tips, and now it is back in water with toothpicks and waiting new pot and perlite soil. Thanks

[twistysunshine]

Have to do this for my mother's geranium tonight, so super helpful! Thanks for uploading. I didn't realize it was a fungus, so I'll make sure to clean the pot well!

[WestValleyTransparency]

For some reason, all of my citrus trees hate terracotta pots, and I live in Oregon, which I'd imagine is cooler than where you're at. My semi dwarf meyer lemon, which looked completley dead, started to come back. It is in a plastic nursery pot with E.B. Stone: Cactus and Succulent mix. The E.B. Stone: Citrus and Palm mix is taking a little longer to dry before I could water again, probably because it had more lava rock than the cactus and succulent mix

[fireflyintheroom]

Such a well done video! Loved how simple it was explained and how you used animations to make it even more clear! The only thing I would do differently - I would use a smaller pot, cause the bottom layer of the soil will keep the moisture in, since there will be no roots to "drink" that water. So good to see you back! Good luck with this poor baby! :)

[sherryporsch]

Interesting, great info to have. I think the little weed growing out between the stones where you mixed your soil is a portulaca, very medicinal. I still hold too, a correlation between root rot, root size an pot size.

[lucaseveri]

Thanks so much. It’s like you went into my mind and showed me how to do everything I needed to know! 👏 Great video!

[korinchapman]

Hi Scott !! So we bought two 4ft avocado trees fall of 2019. We went to the nursery and got the pots/ soil they suggested and went home and potted them ! They looked great until this unusual rainy winter we had... We tried covering them to prevent the rain and everything but it didnt help. Their root rot was soooo bad... Its so crazy though its ssooo hard to find any information online on how to treat root rot for avocados, everything is for prevention. We ended up winging it and repotted them into new large plastic pots and gave them a good sand/cactus soil/ gypsum/ 420 mix. Three weeks later they LOOKED better, greener and leaves wernt falling off anymore so we thought they were good. A month later they started to look sad again..I went on a last ditch effort to scramble through google looking for ANYTHING that could possibly point us in the right direction. On like the 6th page of a search I found this little article talking about cutting all the roots off and pouring hydrogen peroxide water over the cleaned roots, repotting them again, and pouring more peroxide over the soil to further kill any rot that was missed. I then searched for what felt like hours for a video of someone doing this to their avocados and couldnt find anything! Couldnt even find anyone doing it to trees in general, only little house plants. Gave up searching and decided to just do it anyways, if they die they die, if not then amazing !! It was the saddest and cruelest thing ive ever done to a plant haha Its been about a week since we have done it and they havent dropped the rest of their leaves yet !! All of a sudden, after all that work, I just stumbled on your video -__- I SSOO wish I found this earlier, would have saved so much research time BUT happy to see we pretty much did it the same! Read your comment below about it starting to grow back. Sorry to hear about your cat lol but thank you for the giving us hope that this might actually work !!! Fingers crossed !

[mightypen]

I will definitely be trying this. My Avocado tree was flourishing to last summer.
When I brought it indoors in winter( I live in NJ) all the leaves shed and about 2 months ago the stem began becoming brown.
I hope I can Revive Ollie( my name for my Avocado plant).

[girish]

my plant is in same condition. i'll try as you shown in the video and i hope for the best.

[ashleymia]

Wow Scott! I feel like I need to hire you to educate me on production (amongst other things lol)! That was EXCELLENT!

[Plantastica]

I can't wait to see what happens!!

[vinceamato]

Scott - You need to check out "Gary's Best Gardening" channel. 'Gary's Tips For Growing Avocado Trees'. He's the owner of Laguna Hills Nursery. He says potting soil and compost kills avocados if you plant in them. He has video seminars on soil, planting and trees etc. I've tried his methods and saw results in less than 2 weeks. He advocates not planting in "ground up dead trees" - compost and potting soil. Decaying compost and ground up trees rot if they are wet. Don't plant in them. He also says growing a tree from a seed will take 7-13 years to make fruit. So he recommends grafted stock. You get fruit within 3 years of grafting. Good luck with your avocados.

[cgreene]

How did you differentiate the good roots from the dead ones when pruning them?