Im not going to comment on whether or not you should try and import a foreign plant. I will say that my meyer lemon survives 100+ heat with 80-90% humidity in the summer just fine. It does need extra water and would probably benefit from a shade cloth, but it does do ok. Eventually all citrus trees grown from seed will fruit, the unknown is how long it will take and if the fruit will be the same as the parent. Some types are said to take up to 10+ years.

I read this once in regards to the quality of the fruit from a seedling. It will be one of these three, exactly the same if not better, pretty close to the same, or not close at all. 2 out of 3 sounds like good odds to me if you are willing to wait a bit longer.

Mike

Hi Mike: Great suggestion since I was thinking the same!

Hello there in Dubai! Are you working on the tallest building in the world? Amazing I'll say..

Mike

mksmith, thank you so much! now, about the issues of raising a foreign plant... I have ordered heirloom tomato seeds and different kinds of carrot seeds and a few other veggies a few times and customs opens the box and always lets me keep the seeds.

the only thing with the meyer lemon is, I read that the seeds need to stay moist to survive so I would have to sneak in a few whole meyer lemons in my baggage as the seeds won't survive...

Also, one colleague of mine brings in fresh mangoes all the time from India with him when he enters the country and customs has always let him keep them.

While I do think they may be a little too lax about this stuff, I hope its ok to grow a meyer lemon tree out here.

Is there a chance the tree could do damage to the environment out here? All meyer lemons nowadays are from the improved meyer lemon right? that is why I thought it would be ok...

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meyermike_1micha hello, :) the Burj Khalifa is a beautiful site to see :) though the fireworks from there on New Years Eve was a HUGE disappointment.

Well, not to poor cold water on you, but I believe I read that Meyer is not a true lemon but a hybrid. Therefore, it does not come true from a seed and is normally propagated from cuttings. I am sure the experts will correct me or give you a further advise.
Good luck!

The problem with growing lemons from seed is that they take a really long time to fruit. Generally I say the fruiting time for a citrus is proportional to its size. Lemon tree seedlings other than Meyer get very tall. Don't trim them because they have to outgrow the juvenile wood to produce. I had one about ten years old that did not produce and the freeze finially killed it last year.

They sell Eureka and Lisbon lemons in California with the same product code and they taste the same to me. The Lisbon lemons are said to be grown in desert conditions while the Eurekas like cool Pacific coast weather. A lady once brought a Lisbon lemon to a fruit tasting in Houston. She grew it from seed she got in the market. It was much larger than most super market lemons. Some of you interior California citrus growers chime in here and help us out. Are the large lemons likely to be Lisbons?

Also there used to be a lemon grown near Orlando by Coca Cola for their Sprite but that may like more humidity. I'll bet there is one from the Egypt-Isreal-Jordan region that will grow on its own roots that tastes good. But be sure you have similar soil and water types (acid/alkaline) and don't forget salt content. Growing a seedling is a huge investment in valuable space and years of labor so do your research well.

Whether or not a citrus comes true is not dependant on hybridization. Sunquats are Meyer lemon x kumquat hybrids and almost all come true. Fairchild is a tangerine x tangelo hybrid that mostly comes true from seed.

Hi ameera,

If its still relevant to you there's a nursery in Dibba that apparently has a few lemon varieties including Improved Meyer. They also have many varieties of other citrus trees, figs and mangoes (I am overwhelmed with the amount of figs and mandarins). A few other fruits too.
Desert Group Nursery (Wahat Al Sahraa Nursery in Khawaneej) also have lemon tree, but theirs is just a yellow lemon, no variety mentioned. I have a tree from them. Have had it for a few months. It did struggle a little bit over the summer, but seems to be recovering now, and even has 2 lemons forming.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lemon tree nursery, Dibba

the idea of fruit off of seed grown tree is one of the three. Exactly the same if not better, pretty close to the same, or not close at all. does not hold true. If the fruit is not identical there is almost no chance that it will even be close to being as good. To get good fruit you must line up thousands if not millions of genes of the good traits in one tree. This happen very rarely and that is why breading takes so long. The exceptions to this seems to apply to a small number of fruits. That is the main reason we graft the fruiting part on the seedlings of seed grown trees.

Call customs and ask if you can bring an improved meyer lemon in the country. They will tell you. DON'T TRY TO SNEAK ONE IN. You could end up getting an extensive tour of their prison system and how proud they are of it.

you could try getting cutttings shipped to you and trying to get them to root. ive never done this so i dont know how your sucsess rate would be after they've been shipped but it might be worth a shot if you dont want to wait for a seed to bear fruit, or even while your waiting.

however if you say theres a nursry there that has them i would probable just buy one there. if it were me i would probably try to plant an inground fig tree as well if i had the space.

good luck
chris