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We have a mature lemon tree growing outside, last year it had loads of fruit on it, this year, yes there is fruit, but it is small and green, I even had to buy a lemon.
The summer has been hot, (temperatures well above 30C most days), but it still has had water. The leaves are not looking yellow (if they do it gets epsom salts)

any ideas?

possum wrote:We have a mature lemon tree growing outside, last year it had loads of fruit on it, this year, yes there is fruit, but it is small and green, I even had to buy a lemon.
The summer has been hot, (temperatures well above 30C most days), but it still has had water. The leaves are not looking yellow (if they do it gets epsom salts)

any ideas?

Some fruit tree's if they put on a load of fruit the previous year will not put as much fruit the following as they are exhausted.

It's one of the reasons you are advised to thin out the flowers/small fruit so you get a smaller crop of larger fruit, it also encourages the tree to fruit next year....that being said I don't know if this is applicable with lemons, since the climate in the N.E isn't quite up to it. But certainly true for apricots,figs,apple,pears and especially plums.

I think I'm right in thinking that lemons also need a cold (but not freezing) snap to encourage flowering

On closer inspection it appears the problem is that it has got sooty scale, any idea how to get rid of this?

is this the same as sooty mould? a black powder like coating on hte leaves that flakes off when rubbed?

If so, it shouldn't cause any real harm to the tree unless it is SO amazingly thick that it is cutting out the light to the leaves and preventing photosynthesis.

If this is the case, then spraying with an antifungle will help. Bourdout mixture may work, im not sure. also, pruning to open out the structure of the tree so it gets more air and light will also help prevent the mould growth.

Regards, Jed

I found this web site for Australian lemon growers - gosh! the number of things a lemon tree can get; melonose, lemon scab, brown rot, collar rot .........

Anyway, it also lists sooty mould(scale) and sooty blotch, both fungal, look alike but with different cause/treatment.

http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets ... seases.pdf

well it has got sooty mould and scale (poor thing) apparently the sooty mould follows the scale due to the honeydew the scale creates and apparently ants protect them as well (we have plenty of those here).
So I have trimmed out the worst effected areas of the bush (it is quite large and no way could I treat it all) and set to attacking the rest of the scale with soapy water and a toothbrush to try and remove them, and I sprayed the branches (not the leaves or fruit) with a pesticide as I can't possibly have managed to fined every last bit of scale. I shall see how it goes.

I get this same problem on bay trees and oleander. I scrape off the scale with my fingernails these days, but before I knew what the problem was and sooty mould had set in I washed the leaves with soapy water - gets rid of the sticky honeydew as well.

I realise this is too much to do with a large shrub/tree!

Well unfrotunately I think it is the only real solution, I hadve had it on a small bay tree previously, so recognised it once I looked close up. Now that I know what the problem is, at least I can try and keep it under control. I may give it a bit of a prune in a month or so to make it easier to clean off further. At least I got of a fair bit of it, so the bush will be less stressed