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Florida Gardening

Leaf drop on mature Meyer lemon

14 years ago

I posted on the Citrus page as well, but no responses there yet. My Meyer lemon, a mature tree (8+ years) out in the yard with lots of fruit on it, has dropped most of its leaves in the past few days. The leaves didn't turn yellow or anything, they just fell off the tree.

If this is from the cold, why have none of the nearby citrus lost leaves? The rest look fine and they're all next to each other! What can I do to save my tree? What more information can I provide? Help, please!

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Comments (4)

solstice98
14 years ago
You have a couple responses on this forum. Scroll down the page a bit to find your original post.
gatormomx2
14 years ago
This is perfectly normal .
Rake up the leaves asap .
The leaves are a vector for disease .
A clean citrus tree is a healthy citrus tree .
Do nothing else .
Do not prune .
Expect total leaf drop and a gorgeous flush later .
Fertilize in the Spring - not now .
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Leaf drop on mature Meyer lemon
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Comments (4)
Hi barbers, I live two hours south of you... the same thing happened to my neighbors lemon tree last years freeze 09. All the green leaves fell off shortly after the freeze. He thought the tree was dying, but come March/April...new leaves sprouted from the healthy part of the branches and up until this last freeze it had a bunch of lemons on it...Now it is doing the same thing after this recent freeze. He did lose about 20%-30% of the branches but the tree survived..hopefully it will recover again. He didn't do anything special to it...except his sprinkler watered it once a week and pruned the dead branches off in middle of March. He fertilized it around April when the new growths appeared... Good luck!
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Leaf drop on mature Meyer lemon
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Comments (3)
More than likely due to the freeze. I would not worry to much. I am up in ocala and my trees are jut now starting to show just how much damage the freezes have done. You are lucky your fruit is still good. I have about 300 grapefruit, 200 lemons, and probably 50 oranges that are all trash.
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Comments (8)
What is your water like? Browning at the leaf tip can be a sign of too much salt in the irrigation water. Also how are you watering? Citrus does not like to be sitting in water so if you have really heavy clay soil you need to make sure the soil drys out somewhat before irrigating again. Deep infrequent watering is best, especially with clay soils. Your tree is almost completely defoliated, it is hard to tell from the picture if the bark is burned but that can be a problem with so few leaves and harsh sun. I would recommend painting the trunk and exposed branches with a thinned white latex interior paint (50:50 paint water). Good Luck
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Comments (4)
It's going to be quite a challenge not being able to put it outside. A forceful spray of water goes a long way to eliminate pests in a non-toxic way. Keep wiping down branches and leaves -- maybe with a mild soapy solution or maybe with alcohol.
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mexicostacy
Original Author
14 years ago
Thanks all! I did a search of my User Name last night and the original post didn't come up, so I though I had gotten distracted by my toddler and forgotten hit "submit." A common scenario in my house. I'll look for the original post. I got similar advice from the citrus forum folks. The fruit are falling off now, which bums me out. That tree was full of lemons. *sigh*
solstice98
14 years ago
Harvest all the lemons right away and juice them! I freeze the juice in an ice cube tray. Then you can pop out what you need for drinks or recipes.

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