Pictures, please. Pruning back significantly to a node that faces up will encourage new vertical growth. Staking is a bad idea; and probably won't solve your problem; and low horizontal branches will never bear much fruit, because ihey will only touch the ground and invite critters and fungus.

Is it possible that the branches growing are root stock and not the variety you wanted? I think the thorns indicate root stock but not absolutely sure.

First picture shows the tree/bush, again it's about 5 years old or so and a naval.

Second picture shows the branching of the tree about 8' up.

I don't think there is any rootstock growing to account for the thorns. I'll attach a picture of the trunk. Sorry for the duplicate picture. Easy to put pictures on but don't know how to remove them quickly. I'm on a Mac.

Thanks!

First, cut off any branches that are growing in a downward direction, or crossing the center; that will let more light into the center and encourage branching. Next cut off any fruit that touches the ground and prune back the branch that had that fruit to a bud/node that is on the top side of the branch.

That should be about all you need to do; your tree looks good and seems to have a mountain of fruit. Once the fruit is off you can give it a heavy feeding to encourage new growth; if you fertilize it now, it will just put energy into keeping more fruit/making them larger.

I cannot see for sure where your graft is on the root stock. John's advice is good to thin it out a bit. I would go a bit further to shape the tree to the way you want it to grow by cutting 1/3 off in the spring and see what you get in new growth. You do have one pencil thin branch going upwards. Maybe that could become a new leader in the future and eventually you can remove the current sideways branches. The left side of the tree in the picture is taller than the right. Is the trunk there?

Thanks again to you guys for your ideas. Denise I see the first part of this message in my "in mailbox" but don't see the entire message here.

" I see two options from looking at the picture. It looks like the branch that had the graft went bent over and grew sideways because it wasn't staked. .."

I did not stake it; didn't think I needed to since it was such a small plant and I didn't do any research before planting it. If that is the problem I sure missed the boat with no staking. I have a new Satsuma Tangerine about 3 years old, I didn't stake it and it has a dominant branch going off to the left also. I'll send a picture of that one another day.

I just went to look for the graft and see what could be it but it's hard to tell, and yes it is off to the side.

I sent these pictures to "Four Winds Grower" the grower for our citrus. We'll see what they suggest. I'll email them again with your thoughts if they don't see that as the problem.

The reason why my post was weird was because I deleted it and started over. I didn't know the post went somewhere else other than on the public forum. I am sorry. I had questions about the graft and staking and then decided to go in a different direction. I could not find the graft in the picture. Usually it is quite visable and with yours it wasn't because there were 3 branches growing horizontal. Where I thought the graft would be, you had branches below it. Those are normally removed.

I think your graft was on the left of the picture and the main branch became too heavy without staking and guidance. The weight made the branch fall over which explains why it is longer on one side. I am just speculating due to the shape.

If a tree is top heavy, then staking is helpful until the stem is thick enough to hold up its own canopy. I normally take the stakes out of a new tree when repotting . It depends on the plant. I brought home this spring a Hamlin orange from Lowes. The tree was U shaped, bending towards the ground. I put it into a larger pot and staked it up for a few months. Now it can hold itself up straight.

To get the tree how you want it, it will have to be pruned. You have a lot of thin branches on the bottom which I would remove.