Nobody can help you without pictures I am afraid. It sounds like a sucker but nobody can say for sure without looking at it. I don't use neem oil myself. I use malathion whenever I have an infestation and only have to apply it once.

Donna, what kind of scale is it?

If a product used does not do the job you want it to do, maybe you should consider using something else.

Rhizo, I don't know what kind of scale it is. It is brown. Since most of the branches have died, I only have one branch left. I hadn't sprayed it for a few weeks and I am pretty sure I saw little tiny ones on the other side of the leaf. They seem to congregate along the vein.

Nikthegreek, I have searched online, and the only thing that isn't toxic is the neem oil. Neem oil comes from a plant. When mixed with water, you can apply it and what it does, is suffocate the scale. But I am sure I am dealing with life cycles- i.e., eggs and such.

Denise, I am afraid to use malathion on something that we could potentially eat.

I think you just have what we call a water sprout; the leaves will be bigger and it will have big thorns. Just cut it back to about half its growth and it should resort to normal growth

johnmerr - Can you leave the water sprout alone or is it better to cut it in half? I've been leaving the water sprouts as is.

Curare comes from a plant too..

Can you get a zoom-in pic of the part of the trunk where the sprout is located (including showing just above to the branching point and just below)? It looks like that shoot is coming from the rootstock unless the tree was originally from a cutting.

Also if you are seeing small insects along leaf veins, they may be something else too (although scale could be on the leaves when in "crawler" stage). You may want to consider isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol swabbing of them (with q-tips and/or cotton balls), which would be easier to do with your tree at this point since the branches are accessible and not densely foliated. After any treatment, make sure you keep the tree out of direct sun.

I am with jenny on this one. The leaves look like trifoliate but I am not sure because the pictures is not clear enought.

Donna, I understand your concern about spraying your tree with malathion, but you have no fruit on your tree. Do you consume the leaves? The spray is safe to use up until within 14 days of harvest. I don't like applying anything to my trees either, but there are times when you just have to bite the bullet. When I spray my trees, I place a plastic bag on top of the soil and wrap it around the trunk as tight as I can. I don't want it dripping into my soil either.

You have to consider that commercial farmers spray their trees with something in their orchards and I cannot imagine it being neem oil. It's not practical. Good luck with eliminating the infestation.

Look at those thorns. That alone would encourage me to cut it off.

I have a closer up photo of the area where the weird growth is. Above I see a reference to trifoliate. The leaves do have groups of three type leaves. I am curious whether to cut the whole thing off or cut back by one half as suggested above. If anyone can comment on the split bark on this tree and what causes that I would appreciate it. Last

photo is blurry-sorry-I must have gotten too close to photograph.

I would cut that rootstock sucker with those spikes right away, it is taking the energy away from the emerging new growth. I don't know why the bark is split on your tree. Does your container have holes in it? (One hole in a container is not enough).

Sunshine, the container I have it in only has 3 holes that are about 1/2" across.

My typical containers

30 gallon

Hi! I feel like this is a relatable post, let me know if I should post elsewhere. I'm not sure if this is a sucker on my ML. It's smack dab on the graft line and if it's not a sucker, it would be a perfect branch to help fill out my leggy little treeling. Thanks a bunch for your help!

No get rid of it.

'Nuff said, thank you for your help poncirusguy! Do you have any pointers on how I might come to that conclusion on my own in the future? Is there anything else you're noting (besides the proximity to the graft line) that would help me to ID this as a sucker? Thanks!

It is so close to the divide between rootstock and Meyer Lemon that it is not worth taking a chance on it being a ML branch. If you are wrong then you may loose your tree. Error on the save side. If you know that the root stock is a poncirus/Hybrid then any suckers will have leaves like poison ivy. You have a strong trunk that should develop into a very nice productive tree.

Gotcha, thank you so much for your help!