Hello,

I have a potted key lime tree I grew from seed. It’s four years old and about 5 feet tall. It spends summer outside (zone 7b) and winter inside in our sunny living room.

It produced one key lime last year and 75+ this year. It has been plagued with scale, which I spend hours cleaning off its leaves, branches and fruit. I treat it with neem oil and recently sprayed it with horticultural oil before bringing it inside a few weeks ago.

Its branches have a few splits on them and some have died back. I’ve pruned off the branches that died back.

Do the splits indicate a disease?

I enclose some photos of the splitting bark and also its leaves and trunk in case that can help with diagnosing it.

Thanks for any help you can give me!