Yes, I have noticed that when left to ripen on the tree too long Meyers start to become more bland and develop a slightly skunky aroma and off-taste.

My Meyer lemon is as big as a large grapefruit but never changed color. It is 7 months old. Is it too old.

Judging by the skin texture, Steve, your "Meyer" is not too old. 7 months is more or less normal from bloom to ripe. I'm thinking your trees are indoors; so may never get full yellow. If it were mine, at that size and age, I would probably harvest it. Meyers are typically "ripe" (judging by brix) a month or more before turning yellow.

John I had to take the tree inside when a very powerful cold front came through dropping down to 20 F. At 250 pounds the tree is not going back outside. My other Meyer lemon tree went in ground and under glass. This tree would have gone in ground but it had a lemon on it and I would loose the lemon on transplanting the tree.

At 7 months and that large, maybe your tree should lose the lemon. And your fridge gain a lemon.

I'm with Pip... I would cut it; even if it is not fully mature, it is still better than any other lemon. BTW, the size of the lemon does not preclude that it may in fact be a "sport" and not a Meyer at all. Last year I harvested on that size on my farm and it turned out to be some type of sweet orange.

done

I think this will do very well in cooking and saucing but it is a little too strong for out of hand eating. We ate ours tonight

John did you cut the branch off?

Make Meyer lemon curd! Delicious!

congrats Steve. Nice sized fruit.

Steve, as I suspected that is not a Meyer; but rather, some sort of sport. It almost looks like a pomelo.

Pip, if you are asking if I cut off the limb that produced the sweet orange, the answer is no; because my people harvested it to show to me; and then couldn't remember which tree it was; they have had further training since then, as all my trees are numbered by row and position... you never know when you might discover the next Washington navel, or Cara Cara (not sure if that was a sport or an accidental cross)

As far as I can tell this is a rooted cutting from the way the roots come out. This could be a Meyer grafted to a rooted cutting root stock in which the Meyer died but I don't know what would be a rootstock with a fruit that large. If this was not near ripe I can see that I could have a good fruit variety. I could not tell that the fruit ever stopped growing in size. It did slow down as it got cold with short days of low sun

Where did the plant come from?

Sorry but four winds uses Cuban shaddock, cuttings, and according to http://www.citrusvariety.ucr.edu/citrus/cuban_shaddock.html it sure looks like a Cuban shaddock.

I got the trees from a friend,. i forgot where she got them from. It was one of these cute nurseries with a feminine name like whiteflowerfarmes.com.

Yeah, that doesn't look like Meyer to me. I agree, it's almost certainly some sort of pomelo or grapefruit hybrid.

I am wondering if the seeds would grow good rootstock seedlings

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

Idk why it says Yuma is probably the same when the Yuma fruit looks way different. More pomelo looking than citron like Cuban shaddock.

Yeah, I did notice that. But maybe that fruit is just a little off. I don't think they've done any DNA testing, but that would probably be the only way to know for sure.

I finally took the plunge and harvest all the lemons on my tree. As you can see they are a nice size, squeezable and smell great. I am concerned as to what happens next, the tree has a couple of new blooms, not sure if they will make it through the winter, the tree looks so bare now. So many leaves fell off, if ithey continues

I also vote for pomelo cross and not a meyer

Lorraine Your lemon tree will put out new leaves when its ready. As long as the twigs are green they are alive and producing food for the tree. If the lemons form and no leaves come out you will have to remove them. wait about a month before doing so. While it has few leaves it will need very little water but just enough to prevent the roots from drying out. Last winter I watered both my Meyers and a seed grown tangerine tree and I did not have to water for almost 3 months.

The 2 Meyer lemon trees turned out to be Cuban Shaddock trees