[College of ACES] [University of Illinois] [Illinois CES]

Re: NO LEMONS

bobw@enteract.com
Thu, 16 Jul 1998 18:21:28 -0500

I have been growing a lemon tree in a large pot (started from seed) for a number of years now. I live in New England, so it
lives in the living room all winter. Every end-of-winter, it drops leaves, but when I put it outside new leaves come in
abundance -- but no fruit. I haven't been fertilizing it at all...pardon my stupidity, but is this the problem? If so, what
should I use?

Thanks,
Joanne

_____________________________

None of us have ever seen a tree with rollers or wheels on its base. This implies that they have no interest in moving around anywhere else. Rolling a tree out in the summer and in during the winter is an very unusual set of conditions for a tree--and they respond accordingly.

Winter time indoors for your lemon tree is apparently a marginal contition that just barely keeps leaves on the confused creature. It's responding to some combined deficiencies. How much do you water? How much sun does it get? What are the roots like in the container? Probably, no single element is the cause, but there may be a shifting set of subtle problems, the sum of which is what you see. Obviously, the conditions outside in the summer are bountiful and the tree responds in kind.

In regards to fruit, if you were a lemon tree and the year was split into just surviving or suddenly being overwhelmed with good conditions that allowed you to catch up to where you should have been all along, wouldn't you try to get yourself back in a healthy state first?. In this unnatural series of cycles, when would it occur to you to start producing lemons? The capacity for reproduction implies a certain level of maturity. Your tree is in kind of a stumble. For half a year, it's in a world where it belongs; for the other half, it's in a place where it wouldn't have survived unless you dramatically changed the conditions.

Try a light application of fertilizer, maybe fish emulsion, in the summer outside--along with rains and watering to keep from creating a fertilizer salt buildup. Watch the responses, but remember, a small amount of fertilizer can help, a large amount will harm. Your tree is a captive; it must live with what you decide and provide. Try to ease the swings between abundance and deprivation; maybe that increased level of awareness and care on your part, and a few years will let your tree start thinking about lemons.

Thanks for writing,

Bob Wulkowicz