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Old 09-01-2010, 01:28 AM   #1 (permalink)
venturabananas
 
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Default what's wrong with this lemon tree?

I know this is a banana forum, but I also know that many of you grow lots of plants other than bananas, and have lot's more experience growing plants than I do. So... here's a question for those of you thinking outside of bananas:

What is going on with my Meyer lemon "tree"? I use the term "tree" loosely, because it is all of 3' tall, at most.

Here's a photo of a couple of the leaves.

[IMG][/IMG]

These are a couple of the worst looking leaves, but the two major symptoms that I see are present to some degree on most of the leaves. Those symptoms are (1) yellow veins and (2) "burnt" tips.

I understand you can get burning from overfertilizing or excessive salts in the water. Either is possible in my case, though other citrus in my yard and around the neighborhood don't look like this, so I'm guessing it is probably not salts. I haven't fertilized at all in over a month (maybe 2-3 months) and don't think I really went overboard the last time I did fertilize. I have tried to leach fertilizer or salts out by doing a one-time watering with distilled water and deep watering on other occasions.

I'm under the impression that yellow veins is usually a symptom on inadequate iron. I added a liquid solution with iron (from the nursery, not me grinding up nails or something) perhaps a couple of months ago, which did seem to temporarily alleviate the vein color problem.

Am I missing something obvious here? Should I just continue to withhold fertilizer and add more iron?

Aside from the look of the leaves, the complete absence of growth of new leaves for probably 6 months (i.e., the whole time I've owned the plant), and a rather sparse look since the leaves do occasionally drop off and aren't replaced, the plant seems OK. It is constantly blooming and is finally setting a few fruit.

Other potentially relevant details: the plant was nutrient starved when I purchased it -- the leaves were quite yellow. It is in the ground and gets one deep watering per week.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.
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Last edited by venturabananas : 09-06-2010 at 08:56 PM. Reason: update photo link
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