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michael_overton

Please help! Don't know what these spots are!

9 years ago

This is my first post, so please bear with me.

I bought a dwarf Meyer lemon tree in July when I moved into my new apartment with very large, east-facing windows. Everything was going great until about 4-6 weeks ago when I noticed some weird cobweb like things, as well as shrinkage of older leaves and eventually leaf drop. The leaf shrinkage and droppage are still a mystery, but further investigation and lots of googling unveiled spider mites as the cause of the webbing. I sprayed the tree with a neem oil solution at night and put it back in the window.

Over the next few days, these pale yellow-white spots started appearing on many of the leaves. Some of the new growth that was just starting when I sprayed are now curly and never developed the darker green shade as the rest of the tree. I definitely over-pruned to try and cut back some of the damage as the leaves dropped, and no new growth has started.

As the sun rises later and later, and I get less sunlight, I added a floor lamp fitted with a 42W cFl bulb that goes from sunset to 8:30 to try and supplement an extra few hours of light per day. I've seen a single set of flowers, but I suspect the over-pruning is the reason I don't have more.


I just repotted the tree, and while I had suspected root rot as the cause behind the leaf drop about a month ago, I found none. So now I'm simply waiting for the flowering phase to end so the largely bare parts of the tree can refocus on regrowing green leaves and trying to get some shape back on the tree.


TL/DR, what is up with these leaves? Is it burn from the neem oil last month or something more serious?

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