Hi All,

I have a meyer lemon that is indoors for the winter (in minnesota) and it has recently started dropping leaves at the rate of 2-3 per day.

The tree is about one year old.

I've read all of the threads on leaf drop here and didn't see much that fit my tree's situation.

It is planted in a 3:1 ratio of chc and coir in a small terra cotta pot. I have it sitting on a heat pad with some foil wrapped around the outside of the pot forming a kind of skirt to capture heat from the pad. A meat thermometer I have stuck in the soil reads 75-80 degrees all the time.

I water the tree every day by setting it in the sink and running tap water through the soil for a few minutes. Could the chlorine in tap water be hurting the tree?

For fertilizing I have osmocote slow release 19-6-12 in the soil and every 2-3 weeks I water it with miracle gro Azalea, Camellia, Rhododendron Plant Food which says it is 30-10-10.

The other big thing that I wonder about is that the plant doesn't get very good sunlight during the day. I don't have a good window for it to sit near without it getting too cold. So I have it back in a ways but I have some plant lights on it.

I bought one of these glow planel LED plant lights:

http://www.amazon.com/GlowPanel-Growing-Panel-Plant-Rivals-Spectrum/dp/B001N4K2QE

and have had it on the plant for around 13 hours a day with a timer.

One last thing is that recently, before the leaf drop started, the plant had a couple of bunches of nice flowers and now they've wiltted an fallen off it looks like the thing might be trying to grow some lemons there. Should I pull those off? It seems like the tree is still a little small to support that.

Thanks for any suggestions you can give.

Dave

That is just what Meyer Lemons do- they die prematurely and make their owners cuss.
Sorry, I couldn't resist. I can however empathize. I laugh whenever I hear of Meyers being referred to as a great indoor citrus and/or a tree for beginners.
I have kept many varieties of citrus alive (although I am certainly still learning and have killed my fair share of many types) but Meyers still frustrate me more than any others.
I am interested in the input from the group. My best guess is that Meyers are just a plant that are sensitive to environmental change. I seem to do better with the cuttings I have tried over grafted plants for some reason.
Is it an issue of cold/ Northern latitude?
For now, perhaps I will start a group.
"Hi, my name is Kyle and I am a Meyer killer."

My Meyer lemon has been discarding it's older leaves for about two months now. In their place are hundreds of baby purple blooms and some small new growth. Do you see any of this? As least in my case, I feel the tree is about to explode with growth, so I'm not worried at all. All blossoms dry up and if pollinated become fruit. I think Meyer's are self pollinating, so perhaps those are older blossoms are just fine. I'm hoping my information is accurate.

I would suggest posting some photos for the experts to look at.

Kyle, (a Meyer killer....I nearly died laughing.)

I can sense your frustration with the Meyers. I, too, have always wanted a Meyer Lemon, and it seems to be the ONE tree that eludes me. I currently have 4 rooted and they seem to be doing all right for now. (trying not to hold my breath)

I don't coddle or baby my citrus. I don't fool with the coir, bark thing. I just put them in potting soil with a little bark fines, and they all do great,....except Meyers. I grafted a couple on well established rootstock, and lost them. I tried rooting others and to no avail. Well, you get the point.
I'll keep trying with these I have now and see what happens

You do the same, and soon you'll have your nice Meyer. I plan on it myself!

I've had no trouble with Meyer in Canada outside in zone 8 west coast (Vancouver Island). It is sheltered overhead for frost and rain protection. Loaded with buds right now.

Cheers, Barrie.

I'm not sure if this helps very much but I do have a couple of questions/suggestions to a few comments posted.

Dave, how close is that grow panel to the top of the tree? If it is any further than 6 inches it's probably not doing any good at all. That panel is only putting out 14 watts of light which might be ok for supplemental lighting if your tree already gets direct sunlight, otherwise it is probably not enough light. Also LED grow light technology is EXTREMELY hit or miss. More often than not there is not enough of a variety of light color to give the plant robust growth (only the newer generation LED setups are finally incorporating more than just red and blue bulbs) and anything less than 25 watts of light is probably not going to be enough to induce healthy growth. I know those lights claim to be equal to 60 watts of grow light but I know more people that have failed with LEDs than have succeeded.

Low lighting could very well could explain your leaf loss since your tree is getting rather high temperatures for the winter time (75-80 all winter might reduce your spring flower flush?). If you check out any threads on this site that talk about 'Winter Leaf Drop' most point to an imbalance of the proper light to temperature ratio. I would try getting a shop/clamp light fixture and putting a 23 watt (or stronger) daylight compact flourescent bulb about an inch or two above your tree (in addition to your 14 watt panel). You also might want to try lowering the temperature a little. Check out this forum for help with lighting: http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/lights/

Also I hear many people have problems with Meyer lemons and it seems like the one thing most of those people have in common is that their Meyer is grafted upon another rootstock. I could be wrong but it seems as though Meyer lemons do better on their own roots? I think it might have been Lazz that runs this site that told me before that he has had better success with Meyers on their own roots than grafted ones. Mine is a rooted cutting and I have not had any problems yet. Just something to keep in mind for people who have only tried growing a grafted Meyer to no avail.

Joe

Thanks for the replies everyone. Here is a picture of the tree. This isn't where it lives ... this window gets far too cold, I just set it there so I could get some light to take the picture.

Brancato wrote:

Dave, how close is that grow panel to the top of the tree?

It's pretty close, I'd say 4" from the highest part of the tree, further for the lower leaves of course.

Quote:

Low lighting could very well could explain your leaf loss since your tree is getting rather high temperatures for the winter time (75-80 all winter might reduce your spring flower flush?). If you check out any threads on this site that talk about 'Winter Leaf Drop' most point to an imbalance of the proper light to temperature ratio. I would try getting a shop/clamp light fixture and putting a 23 watt (or stronger) daylight compact flourescent bulb about an inch or two above your tree (in addition to your 14 watt panel). You also might want to try lowering the temperature a little. Check out this forum for help with lighting: http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/lights/

Thanks, I didn't think about too warm of roots with not enough light being a problem. I wasn't really worried about flowers yet because the tree is pretty small. I wanted to get it to just grow bigger as quick as I could. I'm very new to this and just read about the cold roots + too much light thing here. I'll try putting a lamp with a bright CFL light next to the tree in addition to the led light.

Quote:

Also I hear many people have problems with Meyer lemons and it seems like the one thing most of those people have in common is that their Meyer is grafted upon another rootstock.

I have no idea what my tree is. I bought it off of gurney's.com. I suspect it was a cutting that they rooted just based off the shape of it.



I think there's just somethign screwy about that smaller side of the tree. It had a big growth flush late last year. Are there any tricks that can be applied to get some branching gowing on that side of the tree? Should I pluck those little developing lemons off of the tree? I'm guessing this thing is too weak to support any of those if they actually grew out.

Thanks!

Dave

You can keep one fruit from each cluster, without causing any loss of new growth to your small tree. Actually, for all the leaf drop your tree is experiencing, the tree still looks to be rather healthy. In stead of running water through the tree every day, I would place the tree in the sink and soak the tree for two or three minutes every 3rd day with 80-85 degree water and 150 - 200 PPM N fertilizer solution. Because the tree's medium is a 3:1 CHC/peat blend the nutrient soaking should not cause any problem. Your tree should soon start to show regrowth along the stems where the leaves have been discarded. NEVER EVER EVER let the medium a Meyer lemon is growing in even become slightly too dry, otherwise a lot of the leaves will quickly begin to turn yellow and drop in mass. - Millet (1,065-)

Yes a 30-10-10 should work. 150 to 200 PPM N. Also normally Epsom salts is added to the fertilizer in the amount of 10 -20 percent of the applied nitrogen content. - Millet (1,065-)

Using a 30-10-10 fertilizer:
200 PPM N = 2.5 grams/gallon
150 PPM N = 1.8 grams/gallon

For magnesium, you can dissolve 1 TBL of Epsom Salts in a gallon of WARM water and apply the cooled solution to your tree 3 times a year. - Millet (1,062-)