I just took my Harvey lemon out of the greenhouse and it is full of developing blooms. I bought the tree from Stan last year, so it is still only about 4 feet tall. Last year all the new blooms just fell off and it did not develop fruit. Is there anything that I need to do this year to insure that I produce at least a few lemons? Do I need to self pollenate the flowers, since there are not many insects around now? Any help for a newby grower would be appreciated.

Spraying the tree with a 10 PPM Giberillic acid solution, will result in a full crop of fruit. Yesterday I applied Giberillic acid to all of my trees (100+). - Millet (1,042-)

Millet - Just ordered a gram from California. Hope it will get here in time. They talked about dissolving it in alcohol before adding to the water. Is that correct or do you have a better suggestion as to how to mix it?

follow the directions, and you will have success

where can we buy this? How do we apply it and when? Is it too late to apply it once the blooms are opening? What's the earliest we can apply it?

This is my first time hearing about this too. I'd like to know where we can get it too. Local big box stores?

I always purchase Valent Bio Sciences' product, which is Giberillic acid (GA3) in the liquid forum. I do so because their product is a 4 percent solution. Even at this weaker dilution, the correct spray mixture is only 1 gram of the GA3 liquid to 1 gallon of water. This makes it easy to formulate the correct spray mixture. I have never used the powder form. For those who are not familiar with GA3, it is a chemical the will "pollinate" citrus flowers. The use of GA3 is commercially used extensively on varieties like Clementine mandarins to produce seedless fruit. When Clementine are pollinated by bees or manually the fruit will be very seedy, but because "pollinating" with GA3 does not actually transfer any pollen, the fruit does not produce seeds. Lastly, GA3 will set such a large crop of fruit on a citrus tree, the fruit will be somewhat smaller in size unless some hand thinning is done. Use the search function on this from, and you will find a lot of information concerning it use. Hopefully, the 1 gram of powder GA3 you purchased is not concentrated, or you will have to divide it into 1/25th of a gram.- Millet (1,042-)

Millet if I buy the tomato blossom product, how much do I need to spray? Do you coat the the tree, the blossoms? What size do the blossoms need to be to spray? Any negatives or side effects to the spray? Lastly, will this stuff hurt bees or discourage them to gather pollen from the trees?

Tomato and Pepper Bloom spray contains gibberellic acid, and should works fine. Spray the open blooms. Gibberellic acid should have no effect on bees. Gibberellic acid is actually a natural hormone manufactured by citrus tree root tips. - Millet (1,041-)

I was at my local Agway yesterday and their tomato blossom spray, in about a 12 ounce bottle, had an active ingredient of cytokinin. That was the only "fruit set" product they had. I don't recall the manufacturer, I was too busy remembering cytokinin. Millet, do you recall the manufacturer of the tomato blossom spray that you refer to?

Barbara

The bottle that I had was a Ferti-Lome product, and the active ingredient was Gibberellic acid. However, I see on the Internet that their label now says Cytokinins, they must have changed their formulation. Evidently Cytokinins set tomato and pepper blossoms, as well as grapes and many other fruits and vegetables, but I have never seen it listed in any publications stating that it works on citrus, to set flowers. As I have never used cytokinins I do not know its effect on citrus blossoms. Perhaps Dr. Manners or other members would know. - Millet (1,040-)

After doing a little looking, I came across this conversation from last fall. It seems as thought the cytokinins in the new formulation would do more for branching that they would for fruit set.

Barbara

link

I was at OSH the other day and picked up a tomato and pepper spray. It didn't contain Giberillic acid. I knew there was another "c" word that I couldn't remember at the time. The "c" word on this bottle was calcium. Coming back home and rereading this thread the "c" word I couldn't remember was cytokinin.

So now that I have this bottle, how well does calcium work at promoting blooms and flowers in citrus?

Unfortunately, calcium has no effect on setting citrus blossoms. - Millet (1,027-)

so calcium works on tomatoes?