probably a couple of weeks to a month until they turn dark green? I don't think there is an exact time frame for the leaves to mature to full dark green but dont worry about it and enjoy the new growth.

Hmm, that's not my experience. I find I get light green new flushes when I've forgotten to fertilize the month or two before the new growth appears. If I fertilize right away it often will get darker green, if I wait too long it never seems to green up the same.

I've also had that happen in container soil if the soil is getting old, like 3-5 years old, sometimes the soil can become too acidic and hold onto water too long, then the tree has a hard time being absorbing the fertilizer when I do feed.

Are your trees in the ground or in containers? Have you fertilized recently? When you do feed, what do you use? A picture would be helpful also.

Im working on getting a pic. I just recently planted them...2 weeks ago. I fertilize with citrus tone and fish emulsion (foliar.) I fertilized when I planted and foliar last week. When they where in containers most of January I fed them MirAcid once (before growth flush). They actually flushed out while in a container in a sunny window before I planted them i nthe yard.

I am concerned about my sunlight situation. currently it gets sun from 9 to 5. Also my water is pretty neutral but soil is very basic (alkaline.) How much sunlight do your plants get. Im in Austin TX 8a.

Will the posters saying their new growth comes out dark green please post a picture. I been doing this only a year and every single new growth leaf on my citrus is a lighter green then the older leaves which theyll eventually become. Please post some pics of this same colored new growth some of you getting.

Here's my examples; santa teresa lemon, gold nugget mandarin, moro orange, yuzu lime, valentine pumelo, rio red grapefruit.

All were fertilized with Osmocote Plus slow release about two weeks before their flushes, and fertilized one week before with Foliage Pro liquid food.

The foliage in some cases are slightly lighter, but imo not a lot lighter. The moro, yuzu, valentine, and rio red's new flush is fairly close to the color of the older leaves. These are all in containers.

The first pics is of a santa teresa lemon that suffered with severe all over yellowing due to lack of nitrogen. After the above feeding the older leaves are starting to barely green up,(but still very light, they may never get all the way dark green) but the new flush is showing a nice dark purple-red. That is how many kinds of lemons leaf out, if it's a nice dark purple-red at first that show's there is enough food present, they will turn a nice dark green in about a week.

The second one is a gold nugget mandarin that was not fed soon enough, just a few days before this flush. Here you can see a marked difference in the green, the new growth is quite yellow compared to the older leaves. I hope they will catch up now with the later feeding, we shall see. As they're very small I'm hoping they will.

Imo, the rest of them have new flushes of growth that are fairly close to the color of the older leaves, in the valentine and santa teresa lemon's cases, the new growth is darker than the older leaves because of better fertilizing this spring.

An interesting aside, if you look at the yuzu lime, you will see on some of the older leaves, biuret damage the previous year from using a fertilizer with a lot of urea in it. Urea is tough to break down to nitrogen in a container and so builds up in the leaf tips as this burn. But as you can see, since swtiching to better fertilizers, oscomote plus and foliage pro, the new growth and even the slightly older leaves from last fall, have no such damage.

These were also treated with imidacloprid last fall and with spinosad and neem oil, just as the new leaves came out, for CLM and the possibility of (though remote) Asian Pysilid.

Santa Teresa lemon

Gold Nugget mandarin

Moro orange

Yuzu lime

Valentine Pumelo

Rio Red grapefruit

My leaves look like the pic of you yuzu lime. Not too light. I took a picture but it was overcast and the image was poor. I appreciate your recommendation! Im not going to worry as long as the plant seems healthy. I just planted them recently and will give them some time to equilibrate. I just planted them at the beginning of February

I have two other questions. My plant did not make very many flowers this time maybe only 20 or thirty (the plant is about 4-5 feet tall. On other similar sized ones I have seen seemingly hundreds of flowers. How can I encourage more flowering? Fortunately these flowers seems to set fruit as almost all of them have left behind little green bulbs.

Also what can I do now to ward off pests this season?

It's not uncommon for a newly planted tree to produce less flowers the season after planting. It's a good thing, the tree uses the energy instead to grow a larger root system and often to put on a larger canopy of branches and leaves. Best thing to encourage flowering next year is good care this year. Sun, regular water, and fertilizing several times a year.

I've had good luck with a mixture of Spinosad and Neem oil to ward off pests. Both are organic products.

Spray on new foliage, according to the product labels. Don't spray when air temps are higher than 85*, as Neem oil can burn leaves at those temps. Spray in the evening, after bees go home. When the spray is dry in the morning, bees will not be affected. Very good for CLM and many other pests.

Last question! I promise. What microutrients are in Foliage pro? I see from amazon page it contains N-P-K as well

If you look at the photos of the Dynagro Foliage pro on Amazon, there's a photo of the back of the label. You can enlarge it and see exactly what micros it contains and in what %.

http://www.amazon.com/Dyna-Gro-DYFOL008-Foliage-Pro-11/dp/B003SUT6VS

I finally got a picture. This is the newer growth on my page