Thanks for your reply. Many of the leaves were bent or had slight tears when I first got the tree as they had it in a box during shipping, maybe that and my initial clueness about how to care for the tree gave an opening for bugs and fungus to move in. The new growth I mentioned took place after I fed the tree with the recommended amount of Espoma Citrus Tone according to the diameter of the pot. I did expect to lose some leaves due to the light change, but I knew the look of the leaves was not good. I'll try your suggestion of cleaning the leaves and hopefully things will improve.

I thought is was scale too, safers insecticidal soap works well for me, mix up a strong batch in a watering can, put the plant in the sink and douse it all over and underneath the leaves and stem too.

Do this once a week and you should get it under control and then you can space out the soapings more.

Scale always shows up for me as soon as I bring the plants inside, they most likely can manage it when outside with natural predators and whatnot. I think you just have to keep persistent and not expect to eradicate the problem but just keep it knocked back and manage it. As soon as they go back outside the problem disappears.

Safers is what I have been using..It's easy and I spray all my indoors plants whether I have bugs or not with it..Under the leaves and on top, all over with towels on the floor around the plants so it does not wet the hard wood floors..I have not had issues with bugs for years on my indoors trees because I maintain at least once a month whether outside with Fish Emulsion or inside what some sort of natural insecticide..

Why are you using Citrus Tone? Did you know that a good chemical fertilizer with Calcium and Magnesium is all you need..At this time of the year, barely any fertilizer at all...

I would pull back on the fertilizer all winter since all you have is lights to prevent soft spindly growth from developing god forbid you would invite a whole host of pests just dying to eat that...

What kind of mix are you using? Usually when a tree is healthy to begin with, pests are often deterred...

You will get it...One thing you will learn for starters is to never let any plant get that bad before you ask for help)

That was the worst branch of the tree, the rest of the tree thankfully wasn't nearly that bad. I've finally finished wiping off each individual leaf, top and bottom, and branches and it looks much better. Fingers were all pruney by the time I finished. After I rest a few, I'm going to mix up some Safer's insecticide soap I have on hand from the summer garden and give it a good spraying and repeat periodically until hopefully the problem resolves.

hobby is probably right about the natural predators thing, I didn't see any bugs on it when I brought it inside which is why I didn't spray it with insecticide soap then (which I knew would probably be a horrible mistake but lesson learned). They came out after I brought the tree in.

Yeah, I didn't plan to fertilize again over the winter. I bought Citrus Tone because it seemed to have relatively good reviews and be formulated for citrus. Everywhere I looked online had conflicting advice on what ratio of fertilizer to feed citrus, I spent hours trying to decipher who was right and eventually just bought the Citrus Tone to stop myself from wasting even more time stressing about it. I'm open to suggestions if Citrus Tone is lacking in an area.

Soil is some organic soil mix with no wetting agents or additives mixed with cedar wood shavings which is what the nursery recommended.

Citrus Tone by Espoma is a very good fertilize for citrus; it is organic and a bit pricey; but most of my friends who have 1 or 2 garden trees use it exclusively and their trees thrive. One of my "secrets" for my Meyers is that someone looks at every tree every day; his supervisor looks at every tree every week; and I try to look at them once a month; with that practice, we don't wake up one day and find our trees looking like yours, or eaten by some critter.

John, are you talking about people using this Citrus Tone for containerized potted trees up North like my area?

Has anyone here ever used Citrus Tone for containerized plants? How does it work for you?

I have and it did not do anything for my trees and in fact my trees suffered in comparison to a good all around chemical fertilizer...

What zone or state do you live in? That helps to know what environment your trees are grown in...The soil sounds like it may be holding perched water which is not good for citrus trees..

I'm also curious as to the effects of citrus tone in containers, as I'm guessing John's friends have their trees in ground considering his location.

I bought citrus tone this summer not realizing it wasn't meant for containers and it also didn't appear to do anything. But also I was scared of burning my plants so it's possible I added too little for it to do anything.

I've switched to the dyna gro family and fish fert now and they seem to work really well. However my calamondin was appearing a little pale and so I recently top dressed a titch of citrus tone and continued with my regular dyna gro grow and it has darkened up a bit.

So perhaps proceed with caution for containers? And probably the liquids work best.

I have little experience with Citrus Tone, as it is too pricey for me; and yes, almost all my friends with my Meyer trees have them planted in the ground. I don't know about other varieties, either, as I am a one trick pony. What experience my friends and I have with Meyers and Citrus Tone is you have to apply at least 50% more than the label recommends. I do sometimes buy and use Citrus Tone for my container trees, when they look like they just need a boost (maybe some trace element that chemical ferts lack?). For my field trees I never put something based only on how they look; I do annual leaf analysis, so that I know for sure what to give them.

Hi john what do you mean by leaf analysis? This sounds interesting.

Leaf analysis the the process of collecting sample leaves and having them analyzed in an agri lab for nutrient levels. I usually only test for NPK, Ca, Mg, Zn, and Iron, as they are the primary factors of production for my lemons. Sometimes I will also do a soil analysis for the same factors; but that will only tell you what is residual in the soil; and not what the tree has absorbed or needs. Occasionally I will test for a broader range, if to me the trees "look like they are missing something"; but each element tested for adds to the price.

Any organic fertilizer that has relatively whole ingredients like blood meal, bone meal, etc. will not work well in containers in most cases. These kinds of fertilizers work well in the ground because they rely on soil microorganisms to convert the raw ingredients into NPK.
Unfortunately most container mixes do not have enough of those microorganisms to do the converting and so the fertilizer just stays as it is, raw materials. Your plant will literally starve while food sits there. Btw, fish emulsion is in this category. It's the Foliage Pro that's working not the fish emulsion.

As the end product the soil microbes produce from the organic fertilizers is chemically the same as standard fertilizers, and since container mixes don't contain the necessary microbes, it's best to just use the standard or "chemical" fertilizers and bypass the missing microbe middlemen.

If you're afraid of "burning" with chemical (standard) fertilizers, just cut the label dosage in half and you'll be fine. That's the popular "Weakly, weekly" method and it works well.

But always make sure your soil is moist before feeding. Water the day before and the next day fertilize. Fertilizing a dry plant will burn it in most cases.

Some of the good benefits of organic fertilizers are that they encourage more soil microbes in the ground and are also good for the texture of the soil. But it just doesn't work like that in container soil.

So just use a standard fertilizer for containers and don't feel bad or guilty about it. But also make sure it's a standard fertilizer that is formulated for container soil mix. Most liquid fertilizes are good.Also fertilizers that are a powder meant to be mixed with water first will work.

Standard granular fertilizers that are not mixed with water first are meant to be used on the ground, so don't use them.

Fie, please be mindful of the fact that a 'PWT' in a container can be your enemy and work against the health of your tree if you do not know how to work with it or are not aware that you have one.

How fast a soil mix drains has nothing to do with a 'PWT' that continually kills fine roots and cause weakness susceptible to bugs above the soil line...If your roots are dying off, then an organic matter added to your mix will only make matters worst..

Thanks Barb that totally makes sense to me. My gardening background is in-ground vegetable gardening and I am 100% organic with that but I have learned that container growing is completely different.

In ground you want to feed the soil that will then feed your plants but in containers the soil is just a medium so you have to feed the plant directly. Your info just fleshed out my understanding quite a bit.

Thanks john no idea you could test leaves like soil. Great idea in the event of trouble!