Here is a closeup of the trunk structure of my trees. I would like to train them down to around 7ft but that gets down to a pretty big trunk.

If you are familiar with the concept of drop crotching, that is the best method for reducing the height of cirtrus; if you are not familiar with it, a Google search will give you all the information and videos you need.

I don't think the size of the "trunk" that you cut is important; only takes a different tool... and be sure the tool is sterilized, no matter what it is...no need here for a hospital autoclave, a little soap and bleach will be fine. If you cut a sizeable limb, it would be a good idea to seal it with grafting wax or maybe just white paint until it heals and new branches emanate.

What John said. Drop crotch pruning will be the method you'll want to use to bring down your tree height. I have included a great article by one of our San Diego CRFG members, Tom del Hotal, who is also an arborist. I think this is one of the best instructional articles about properly pruning citrus.

Patty S.

Here is a link that might be useful: Citrus Tree Pruning

Thanks, Patty... you are a fountain of information; and you have sooooo much more patience than this old curmudgeon.

Thanks Johnmerr and Patty. That was a long read but good for my needs. Several of my trees are away from the power line right-of-way so I can train them for aesthetics and fruit more than just to keep them below 12 feet.

Lemons respond well to pruning/hedging/topping. Johnorange I have determined that your trees are not Ponderosa Lemon tree's. I work in the historic Indian River district of Florida and this is a common misconception. I believe it said you live in Texas, correct? Ponderosa lemons would never survive in Texas unless there was some freakishly warm winters. I believe your tree is a Rough Lemon, a common rootstock used here in Florida. It produces large, bumpy lemons. It can withstand temperatures of around 10 degrees fahrenheit I believe. I have two large ponderosa lemon trees I can show you pictures of. I also have pictures of when I picked a neighbors Rough lemon tree for her. It had over 100 lemons!

IndianRiver, interesting....Thanks for the comment. I'll have to do some research on the Rough Lemon. What I have read thus far hasn't given me any real clear characteristics to differentiate the two.

They look like Ponderosa to me; but then I ain't no expert; you should know better than anyone what it is you have.

None of the sources I find seem to agree on the size of the rough lemon tree. Some say it's more of a bush, up to ten ft tall, while others say it makes a "large" tree. Several sources say the rough lemon "juice content is low". My trees grow more like trees than shrubs and are 15 ft tall now (by measurement) even after an aggressive pruning back two years ago. In six lemons I juiced last year, ranging from medium to large, the juice content by weight was 44% and averaged 0.73 cups by volume. I'm in the southeast part of Texas, near Beaumont. We commonly get a few nights in the mid to upper 20s (F) each winter and sometimes get a night or two in the upper teens. I covered my trees on cold night until they were too big to cover. Now that they are large trees, temps in the upper teens will knock off most of the leaves but I have only lost one tree to the cold this past winter and it was struggling anyway. Sooooo, who knows. My trees were grown from seed and the trees that produced the seeds were also grown from seed, so they could have morphed a bit by now.