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| I bought a one-year old Meyer Lemon plant (small tree) from Four Winds Citrus this past May. When the plant arrived it had blossoms and now the small tree has three lemons that are each larger than a ping pong ball. Do you know how large these lemons will grow considering the small size of the plant? The plant looks nice now, but I don't know how it will support these lemons if they get much larger. I was hoping that these small lemons will ripen and turn yellow at their present size without getting any larger. Is that a possibility? If not, I may have to remove them.
Thank you. Jerry |
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| It would help to see a foto to see how big/strong is the tree. If it has only 3, they may get to be around 4-5 ozs. If they are all on one branch you might want to take off at least one. Meyers are prodigious producers and the little limbs will support much more than you would believe; but like all citrus they are self thinning; i.e., they will drop any fruit the tree cannot support. The problem with Meyers in the first few years is that if you don't take off at least part of the fruit, the tree will not grow..it will just make fruit. Note... the size of the plant has little to do with the size of the fruit; I have seen lemon bonsai trees with fruit larger than the tree. |
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- Posted by houstontexas123 z9 (My Page) on Mon, Sep 19, 11 at 3:57
| they can get a little bigger. the fruit can get heavy enough to weigh down a young tree. |
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| Meyer branches are very flexible. When the harvest is heaviest (late winter/early spring), the branches of my younger Meyers look like 'weeping willows', they're so heavily weighted down with fruit. As it gets older, the branches thicken up and stay more horizontal. Size/shape of fruit is variable with Improved Meyers, as is skin thickness. |
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- Posted by dancinglemons 7B (My Page) on Mon, Sep 19, 11 at 17:03
| Jerry, Don't remove them. My first citrus was a Meyer and it did the same thing. The fruit just bent the branches down until the fruit was literally below the rim of the container. The lemons got the size of tennis balls. That tree still does the same thing. No broken branches yet. Cheers, |
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| Typical Calif. Meyer at 3 years on dwarf rootstock.
The thing is, if you leave all the fruit at this age, in 5 years it will still be producing that amount every year... and the tree will still be the same size; to encourage the tree to grow...if that's what you want... you have to take off some of the fruit when it is young. |
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| Thanks for all your comments. The three lemons are all on different branches and nicely positioned around the tree. So I will just leave them on and see what happens. If someone can advise me on how to post a picture on this forum, I will happy to post one. Thanks again, Jerry |
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