Many fruit trees need a pollinizer of a different variety in order to be productive and fruitful. The variety of dwarf avocado tree that we purchased said the tree is self-fertile, but we purchased two anyway, just because we love avocados so much. 🙂
I planted both trees with the same planting method (described here), they are in the same area of the garden, with identical light exposure, and have been given the same amount and frequency of watering. All of a sudden, one of the two twin trees started dropping all of its leaves. When I tested the moisture level of the two trees, I noticed that the dirt around the distressed tree had moisture levels that were through the roof, while the dirt around the other tree had normal moisture levels.
Young fruit trees need tons of water to establish their roots, but too much water can lead to root rot. Since I had been giving them the same amount of water, I was pretty upset. We aren’t 100% sure what caused the variation, but are hoping that better amending the soil in the future will help prevent similar problems from happening again!