Ok, this is a long story, but I am hoping that some of your citrus pros out there can help me.

I have this Lemon Tree. It was grown from seed. I just figured out the years here, I have had it since 1997 or 1998, about 12-13 years. I was not the orginal person who started it from seed, so while it was still young, it was probably 4 years old when I got it. So the tree is probably about 15-17 years old ( I did not realize it was that long already, I am getting old!)

A friend started this seedling, that was from his father's very old lemon tree. At the time (1997), the lemon tree was about 75-80 years old! This lemon tree was brought over on the boat from Italy around the 1900's-1910's. I doubt there were many fancy lemon types or grafts back then, so I assume it is a strain of lemon orginating from Italy. They were from the town of Avellino. So this is where the tree would have come from. The lemons on the tree were the size of grapefruits!!!!

Of course, the parent tree was self-fruiting.

Well, so, I have had this tree forever now. I live in NJ, so it is hauled in and out every winter. It is now in a huge 25" pot! It was probably in a simple 8-10" pot when I first got it given to me.

It is a good 5 ft + tall. It has not had many bad things happen to it, just maybe during some of its 4 house moves. During some of the moves, adjusting to light in the winter, etc, it has lost almost all of its leaves a few times. But the last time it was completely bald was about 4-7 years ago atleast.

It does loose leaves though during the winter. At this house I have been in 2 years, I have supplimented it with extra indoor lights and it has done pretty well. Although I do need to look into some more specific lights for the tree and all my citrus. MAybe someone can suggest, but that will not be until the fall.

ANyway, after being a good 5-8 years old, it blossomed. Sometimes, profusely! However, NEVER a lemon! I have done just about everything to get this thing to fruit,and it just will not.

Now what seems weird to me, is that I do not even get to see the little ball to become a lemon like I do in my other fruiting citrus flowers. I do not even see anything in the middle of the flower when I open it. Like it is missing its fruiting parts ( if that is even possible).

Since it has been so long and so many years, I am wondering if it will not fruit? Or what is stopping it if it can? I really think it is mature enough.

Although I do not ever prune it a lot, I do have to pinch some new growth only because it has to go indoors and I cannot let it get insanely huge, although I think it is pretty big now. So I do not think I have ever hurt it pruning since I rarely do it, and just pinch stray growth.

So, can anyone help with this? Maybe someone knows about this region's of Italy's lemons back then? I assume there were only so many that one could buy, since it was about 100 years ago, and there were not even cars yet to travel to buy trees. So I assume the parent was a native of the region.

Is it possible that it will never fruit and just blossom? Or is there something I can do? What do you all think? Is it because it was grown from seed and not from a cutting that could be the problem?
I have tried so many years to get info on this, and never really got what I needed.

Here is a pic of the whole tree, but if you need specific pictures of certain parts that can help you form a better opinion, please let me know, and I will take more pics however you would like!

Thanks again so much! Christy

The problem is that if you prune back a branch, it resets the node count to where the prune occurred.

As for soil, it does include some bark components, but is not a specific recipe or anything and does contain some regular soil. Now that I know of some good soil recipes from the forum, I was going to amend it with either the coco-husk or 5:1:1 recipes. Although, it does seem to be doing great in what it is in.

Yeah, the only huge lemon I know of is Ponderosa also, so I assume it can or is a Ponderosa. But since every Ponderosa I have seen or grew always fruited when young, I often have wondered if it is not, and maybe some weird Italian native that I do not know of?

Mgk65, Thank you! I have learned something new again from you! I really have to find some info about leaf node #’s and counts. Hopefully there is a thread here explaining it here in more detail on the forum?

So, are the # of leaf nodes to fruit numbers pretty much the the same within one variety? Or, does the # of nodes before fruiting vary greatly even within the same variety?

Does the leaf node count apply to just fruiting, or does it apply to when it starts to blossom also? Does a tree have to have a certain amount of leaf nodes before it just blossoms also?

Thanks again for all the help! I will be back soon! Christy

A good discussion is here:
http://citrus.forumup.org/viewtopic.php?t=3995&highlight=node+flowers& mforum=citrus