My Lisbon Lemon tree was the worst of all my citrus trees as far as freeze damage this past winter. It completely defoliated although many of the varieties grafted onto it did not have any visible damage ( the exception there was the calamondin--both grafts were severly frozen--one died).

The surprise effect of the freeze was that all of the lemon flowers that it formed this spring were imperfect--no ovaries-- and therefore no fruit. The number of flowers was also much lower than normal.

Flowers on other varieties were normal, although only one of three grapefruit had a any flowers.

My seedless lemon was killed to the stump but the graft survived. It was only in the ground for one year though and rather small. I had banked it with dirt for protection.

However, my other rather small trees had the same result: nova mandarin, bell mandarin, pong koa. Severely defoliated were tarocco blood orange and duncan grapefruit which were a couple years old size. Valencia and Moro blood orange although bigger trees were damaged as they had been transplanted last year.

I have meyer lemon trees that had no freeze damage at all and many flowers this spring, but most of the flowers had no ovaries and relatively few fruit set. I could not harvest the fruit on the inside areas of the canopy in the fall and they stayed on the tree all winter until they dropped off. There are still a few fruit on the plant from last year that are out of reach to harvest. Could this be why so few fruit set this year?

Last year I left fruit on until mid May, but the tree bloomed in March and set fruit. It set over a 100 lemons, so I don't think leaving fruit on will prevent the tree from blooming or setting fruit. I have heard it will reduce the bloom and fruit set, but 100 lemons is plenty for me--it is availability over time that is more important to me.

I think the long cold winter we had and the fact that the tree defoliated had more to do with the lack of complete flowers and no fruit. Citrus flowers actually start out as leaf buds, but then morph into flowers (differentiate) during the dormant period. I think the extreme cold and the lack of leaves limited that process.

Skeet, I have practically no fruit on 3 satsuma trees. i believe it is due to the cold.

It does appear that satsumas may have been affected by the cold. Both my satsuma and my sister's have pretty light flower and fruit set. Last yr I had a good crop on mine and so did my sister .

Some citrus are prone to alternate yr bearing but lemons and satsumas are not know for alternate yr bearing. I have a couple that are like my Ponkan--it had a bumper crop last yr and it has a light crop this yr--I have a second Ponkan that I grafted onto a rootstock sprout that is bearing strong this yr.

I was expecting my Daisy to have a light crop this yr since it is suppose to be prone to alternate yr bearing, but it is producing a second bumper crop--clusters of fruit like grapes! And it was my favorite last yr.

My trees bloomed profusely, more than any other year. A result of all the cold weather?

"Cold" winters that provide temperatures between 40 to 60F, where a citrus tree can accumulate a minimum of 650 cool hours for trees that had a light crop the previous year, or 850 cool hours for trees that produced a heavy crop, greatly increases the spring bloom. - Millet (979-)

Satsumas are alternate bearing like most mandarins. With satsumas you normally get a huge crop one year and a very small or almost no crop the next especially after about 8 to 10 year age . I have three satsuma trees that had very little or no cold damage and the one(Browns select) that had a small crop last year has much much more fruit set this year and two (Owari) that had large crops last year have much small crops this year. This is the downside and normal for satsumas and this is why they are not very popular with commercial growers.

After the third year in the ground they each averaged about 350 fruit set per year, but then five years later the alternate bearing syndrome manifested where some satsumas would set 600 to 700 one year and only 100 to 200 the next.

This year I have at least 500 fruit set on the Browns select but the two Owari do not even have 100 combined. It looks like a lean year for satsumas and it is not due to cold damage. This has been the pattern for my satsumas for the last three years. At least 900 fruit set last year but some were lost to brown rot due to heavy rain in the fall and the fruit very close to the ground.


The satsuma has long branches and when many fruit set they bend down with the fruit touching the ground. I usually prop up the branches with stakes to prevent brown rot problems which is common when the fruit contacts the ground especially if there is heavy rain. I lost some fruit last year to brown rot despite proping because there was so much rain in September and October. This year there is less fruit set on the lower branches and much more on the upper branches. Anyone else have problems with brown rot on satsuma fruit?



The meyer lemon trees also have not yet set much fruit relative to past years and they also had no cold damage.

Thanks TRI, I had not read that satsumas were alternate bearers, but that would explain mine and my sister's. I am glad I have multiple copies of my Ponkan and it appears they are on opposite cycles.

I do think the defoliation of the lemon probably had something to do with the fact that almost all of the flowers were incomplete male flowers.

As for the brown rot, my sister's trees are old enough to have long branches that touch the ground and she does have that problem. Mine is close to a chain link fence and many of the branches are propped by the fence.