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Florida Gardening

Meyer Citrus Tree Problems

10 years ago

Hi I am fairly new to gardening. This year I added a few citrus tree's to my garden. I got a Meyer citrus tree from Lowe's. It looked great at the store and has lemons growing on it but they are still green. I got the tree at the end of March but the lemon's have stayed the exact same size and color since getting it. They are not growing. Also when new flower's form they either turn black and die or when they start turning to small fruit they fall off. Any idea's on why this is happening and what to do to save the tree.

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Comments (2)

bamboo_rabbit
10 years ago
KH,

Citrus nurseries hormone spray the young trees to get them to bloom and set fruit.....it is basically like forcing a 3 month old kitten to have kittens. The tree is not ready, not old enough to fruit but is forced to set a crop. Then the tree is uprooted from it's pot and put in the ground where it has to try to make roots and adjust to it's new home all the while trying to ripen the artificial crop that was forced on it.

Many times these trees will ripen the fruit then for the next 3 years not set another fruit and the home owner wonders what is wrong with the tree.

The best thing is to fertilize regularly......water......and pick off that dang fruit. If you just can't bring yourself to do that at least remove all but one.

I'm surprised it is still blooming:) You must have picked a strong tree. Citrus are very good about judging how many fruit they can ripen. The excess fruit the tree drops when it is small. Your tree is telling you it can't ripen more fruit so away the small fruit goes. There is nothing wrong with the tree.it is doing the right thing.

Pictures help but if the tree is nice and green all is well.
carolb_w_fl_coastal_9b
10 years ago
It might be helpful to know how the tree was planted & what, if any materials were used.

The reason I say this is because I made the mistake of potting a citrus seedling using a bag of organic 'garden soil', which apparently has zero nutritional value & the poor tree (variegated lemon) just sat there NOT growing for months before I figured out what was going on.
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