It regarded advantageous for the primary a part of the winter, good inexperienced leaves for probably the most half, with solely the oldest leaves getting a little bit yellow from the chilly temperatures. This is a photograph from mid-January:
Then, a little bit over a month in the past, the leaves began dying at a fee of about one or two per week, from the underside up. This was what it regarded like by February 20, with a lot of the leaves lifeless however the internal leaves nonetheless principally inexperienced:
Yesterday, I made a decision it was utterly lifeless, it was virtually a foot shorter than earlier than (shriveled), the cigar was brown:
Once I lower into the highest, the guts was brown and gentle:
As I lower off chunks to take away the remainder of the p-stem, it began smelling a sickly candy scent, much like fermentation, and by the bottom it was very gooey and positively beginning to rot:
I had watered it fairly repeatedly, and examined with an orchard soil moisture probe so I solely watered when it was medium-dry or drier. I do not suppose the issue was watering-related.
There had been a LOT of rain lately, and it is doable there is a deep perched water desk that the roots did not attain final yr however they had been waterlogged deep this yr?
The climate was chilly, however not colder than the earlier yr when it over-wintered advantageous.
My main concept is a few type of soil pathogen that was in a position to assault simpler within the winter when the defenses had been down, however no clue what pathogen that is likely to be.
Any ideas?
