Painful, But I heard that as well. Seems criminal, but apparently it's better for a plant so young not to overbear fruit... I am new at this so wait till everybody else responds.

I maybe trash for this but I don't wait. Us being a hobbyist want beauty and to taste your first fruit as soon as possible. That's me but if you are a commercial grower and want your tree grow very fast, grow it vegetatively for 5 years straight.
What is more satisfying to grow your citrus and on the first year you saw it flowers and bloomed and grew the fruit to maturity. Your happiness counts the most.
Having said that I am now removing most of the fruits in all of my plants so they will grow vegetatively this time. This is my 4rth year growing citrus.
I satisfied my curiousity tasting their fruits for 3 years now. Now I know how they taste like (superb) but I want quality fruit and not quantity. So I pinch the smaller fruits and just leave the biggest of the bunch.

If it's a tree planted just this year and it's healthy I'll generally leave two or three fruit on the tree and cull the rest. A big fruit load on a newly planted tree is only going to cost you in growth for the year.

The next year I'll leave whatever fruit it happens to set unless it's quite a lot then I'll thin those, but by then it's generally well down the road to becoming established.

.....Alan.

Pick off the small fruit. 99% of flowers fall off naturally. If you don't pick the small fruit, expect to get minimal grow. The young fruit on satsuma trees is generally very poor quality anyway, but gets better with age. 25 year trees make fabulous fruit, thin skinned and very high quality. I let my satsuma trees grow to 5-6 feet before bearing.

Here is a link that might be useful: mrtexas

Can you pick off the flowers before they bloom? Or wait till they become fruitlets before picking.
Benny