Meyer Lemon Losing Baby Lemons!!

14 years ago

I have a beautiful young meyer lemon tree in my backyard. I have left her potted, with ample room. She put out lots of new growth this spring and was covered in buds. Many have bloomed, and there are many more coming! The air smells like heaven.

I started noticing a few weeks ago that all of the teeny (VERY teeny)baby lemons that she had set were starting to fall off! I look back every few days and MORE have dropped off. They look a bit yellow...not in that good lemon way. The leaves still look great - the tree itself looks happy and healthy. She keeps throwing more buds and seems to be truly happy where she sits. She gets great sunlight - but not too much to burn her. She was fertilized in the early spring. Getting close to three months ago now.

HELP! I don't want her to loose them all! What does she need? What have I done wrong?

Featured Answer

Tom Weber

6 years ago

last modified: 6 years ago

Well, I've had the same issue for years. As previously stated, I'm counting on mama lemon to decide how many baby's to hang on to. I cloned the two meyer lemon trees back in the late 80's. When they have a bumper crop, it takes several years before they have another bumper crop. This is a bumper crop year.

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Comments (6)

floridafarmer
14 years ago
How about water greyeyedgirl?
e36yellowm3
14 years ago
Hi - it depends on if "all" is accurate. It certainly seems like my Meyer Lemon drops way too many tiny baby lemons, but in all honesty, it's not all. I'd love for it to keep all the lemons that start but I guess it knows what it can keep and grow. It kills me to see all those potential lemons laying on the deck, but I keep checking to ensure it's at least keeping some. If your plant is keeping some, then you're ok, because creating lots and dropping a bunch is normal. Dropping all is not normal, though. Hope that helps. Alana
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Well, shortly after the post, I realized I needed to take action, so I repotted both lemons right away. They were originally put into 12 inch terracotta pots, but I reduced the size of one to a 10 inch terracotta pot (the second stayed in the 12 inch). When I trimmed in the original potting, it was less than an inch off the bottom. I repotted with 1/3 part of cedar shavings (as recommended by Four Winds Growers) and gave them a GOOD SOAKING of water. The roots were quite dry, no root rot had set in, and they were very healthy. The roots looked the same as when they shipped 6 days prior. The GOOD NEWS: the next day after repotting and heavy watering, a few of the buds opened up! They smell fantastic. I imagine the plant wouldn't open buds if it wasn't bouncing back? They've also bee in full sun since Sunday. There are still some yellow leaves, and I lost a few more (maybe 1 a day from each, rather than 6+ a day from each), but I take it they're recovering? After seeing the buds open up, I gave a light feeding and another watering today. We're having night lows in the 50's, so I'm leaving them outside at night now too. Are they on the mend?
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I would also vote for Cuban Shaddock. I have one in my yard where a grafted scion from Four Winds died and left the root stock alive. It's been growing for a long time and the fruit looks exactly like that. If you left it longer it would color up to yellow. It has pretty big thorns. I believe Cuban Shaddock is a pomelo-lemon cross and the fruit tastes much like a lemon. It's pretty good, and great for cooking. At least the fruit has a use unlike the trifoliate type of root stock. It's pretty cold hardy too, so you might as well keep it and enjoy the fruit. Pip gave you the link to the info on it. They also says Yuma Ponderosa may be identical so here's that page too. It talks about the seedlings and it's root stock uses; http://www.citrusvariety.ucr.edu/citrus/yuma_ponderosa.html By the way, since you're interested in the various root stocks, I found this page with some good info on citrus root stocks. It's old, and some of root stocks aren't used anymore, but there is a lot of useful info there. Also apologies to rosgold65 for hijacking their thread. Hope they don't mind. http://www.citrusvariety.ucr.edu/links/documents/Bitters.pdf
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Well, you have probably made some of the classic Meyer lemon errors. First, when you dramatically change the light conditions a Meyer will drop most, if not all its leaves, to replace them later with leaves better suited to the new light conditions. To move a Meyer from outside to inside without the leaf loss, you need to move it from full sun to partial sun for 2 weeks; then to full shade for 2 weeks; then indoors; reverse the process when putting it out in the Spring... and please DO put it out, if you can; you will be rewarded with a happy, healthy plant. Second, when you bring it indoors to a sunny window, the plant gets warm; but the roots generally stay cool; and citrus roots don't like to grow into cool soil... the solution is to put some sort of heater to warm the soil, or to put the plant a little further from the window. The thing to remember is first the roots grow; and then the leaves and branches. Now to your current situation... the plant is stressed and "thinks" it is going to die, so it will try to make seeds (fruit). If you take off the flowers, the tree will only make more; so wait until the flowers drop and then take off all the fruit; soon after that, if you treat it well, it will start to make new leaves... and then you should start to feed it. Have patience.
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Drew, just because your other plants are fine does not mean they will stay that way if you are using the same mix that decomposes like that. You may still have time on others and or may get caught off guard.. Typically, in order to be successful at least a little bit with finer mixes , you would have to re pot every 6 months or less and only pot up in one size. Flushing this kind of mix is a must of any accumulated salts... What kind of other trees or plants do you have and what are they planted in? How are the leaf margins and or very tips of them? I'd bet if you had a palm tree growing in that kind of mix watered that way, the fronds would be all black tips or yellow...How are your other plants leaves, the tips? Are they flawless? If you tap water has magnesium sulfate in it at higher levels, then it can leave white reside as spots behind...Too much of it and other chemicals can also contort the leaves.
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tcanora
14 years ago
I know how you feel. Unfortunately, only 5-10% of the blooms will result in set fruit. I have a lemon tree in the ground that blossomed for the first time this year. It's three years old. I had hundreds of blossoms and lost all but 12. But the 12 fruits that set are doing well and they are about the size of a walnut! I did notice that I started losing less after I fertilized. I was on the same schedule as you where the blossoms came at the end of the three month fertilizing cycle. I have also had a handful of new blooms recently and almost all of those seemed to set fruit. I am getting a flush of leaves now and am hoping for more blossoms in June and hopefully more lemons this fall.
borde
14 years ago
My goodness, I feel like I need to chime in here. I too have a little Meyer Lemon tree, a I am just amazed at it, It's just a little thing, and I've had it going on 3 years now. It has one huge lemon that seems like it must be a year old and almost ripe, then another about golf ball size and I see a baby about pea size on there now. It never had noticeable dropping of baby lemons. It seems like it blooms year round...but it lives in a greenhouse year round. I've never fertilized it, and it is potted in plain old commercial potting mix. Now that I read what it needs for potting soil when it grows too big for the pot I will mix my own.
I'm really thrilled with this youngster. How long do they live? Should I be putting it outside in the summer?
onlysonbuck
14 years ago
As a single voice in the discussion, you are all excited about a Lemon Tree that has a mind of its own and it can be very frustrating. The Lemon Tree will only fruit as many as it can support I guess genetically. I dont know how else to put it. Thats just the way they are, some years plenty of fruit, other years they will break your heart by dropping practically all of their fruit. Thats just the Lemon Mentality.Better Luck next year.

Meyer Lemon Losing Baby Lemons!!

Tom Weber

Comments (6)

floridafarmer

e36yellowm3

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tcanora

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