Limes fell off!

17 years ago

I'm back with probably another newbie question. My key lime had been doing very well, in fact seemed to be in a period of growth with new leaves, blooms, and fruit. There were three well established limes (though still fairly small) already growing before this recent growth activity. I haven't changed my watering routine, or anything else with the tree but today I noticed ALL the fruit had fallen off. The established limes as well as the newly set fruit. The tree itself seems fine, the leaves look healthy, no evidence of pests, etc. Can anyone give me some ideas about what happened to the fruit, and if so what I can do to prevent it from happening again? On a side note, my ponderosa lemon is thriving and doing well, with lots of healthy looking fruit.

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Comments (4)

justaguy2
17 years ago
I think you may have a serious case of 'young tree disease'. fortunately it isn't fatal, but unfortunately it requires a strong amount of patience to deal with.

Here is the low down on fruiting trees in general. When we purchase them as young, grafted things, we expect them to be like annual veggies that go from seed to harvest in a few months. With fruiting trees that is right on if we just change months to years.

During the early part of the tree's life expect lots of 'problems' that will cure themselves in *most* cases. I emphasize the word most because sometimes there really is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. Most of the time though the silly stuff like leaves curling, dropping, fruit aborting, leaf chlorosis in the spring and other 'problems' are simply the result of a young tree that needs a few years of decent growing conditions to mature and stabilize.

In the mean time, don't sweat it.

If the tree is putting out new, healthy looking growth when weather is favorable, chances are everything is OK.
lachui
17 years ago
I have a similar issue too. Its a Bearas Lime that's been in the ground for about 5 months. It has citrus mix soil and citrus spike. It was originally in a container but it started getting yellow leaves (iron difficient?). After it was transplanted the leaves returned to green and the tree flowered and even grew some small fruit. The fruit has never matured (at least those that have stayed attached). A lemon tree planted at the same time already has fruit the size of a pinball. Is this a case of the lime just not being mature? The tree gets regular water and has been fertilized once. The lime also isn't growing many new branches or leaves although it doesn't seem unhealthy. Any help or advice would be great!
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kurtswansonjr
17 years ago
Well I have a mexican lime that is about 10 years old that someone gave to me because I loved it so much. This tree had beautiful fruit and it was delicious. Now that I have it, I have been watering it regularly and also giving it fertilizer every few months. It had about 30 limes on it. THey all got to the size of a dime, and poof...they all fell off!?!? Not happy...any help out there?

Kurt
tasty
17 years ago
kurt,

It doesn't have to be a disease could of been a number of things that caused the fruit to drop stress, un-pollinated flowers,wet feet,lack of nutrtion

Tasty