The Tropical Fruit Forum

I suspect the increase or decrease of crop potential, is more of a University thing, then a commercial growing situation.

Sylvain is correct, citrus trees started out in Asia as under story trees growing in the partial shade of the native taller trees.  I  have 7 in ground trees  (all different cultivars) and many container trees.  They all grow in full sun, I don't bother shading them.  It would be easy enough to shade container trees, if someone wanted to, but quite difficult to shade a fully grown tree.

I have not seen BocaJoe in a long time.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/where-is-the-largest-collection-of-rare-potted-citruses

Well I guess I will amend my above post to:  peel splitting can be caused by sever calcium deficiency in very RARE conditions.  However, Fruit splitting occurs the world over in areas of good calcium soils.   Thanks for the info.

I remember Dr. Malcolm Manners writing in a thread on the old forum, that in all his years with citrus, he never seen a citrus tree deficient in calcium.

I think the Rubidoux trifoliate was named after the Rubidoux mountains near Riverside, California

More than 100 Asian Citrus Psyllids recently found in San Obispo county California so far this year. County officials say the psyllids were brought in by people buying citrus from out of the county.

There are only two ways for soluble salts (fertilizers, bio-carbonates, sodium etc) to get out of a container.  Either the plant absorbs them, or they are flushed out with a lot of water. If the water used to flush the container is not either rain water, or distilled water, it too could be adding additional soluble salts with each watering.  If the  small tree's root system does not fill the complete volume of the container, these soluble salts quickly begin to accumulate causing many problems for the tree.  If the medium is frequently flushed to remove the harmful ingredients, the unused portion of the medium is constantly water longed and compacted.

It was common thought that it was beneficial to line rocks  or other chunky ingredients along the bottom of a container to promote drainage.  However, it is now known that doing so is not a good idea, as it simply raises the perched water higher into the container, leaving less room for root growth.  A growth medium for a citrus tree, MUST provide good drainage, and good air porosity. Most mediums made from straight bagged potting soils meet these requirements ONLY for a short period of time, then problems will quickly begin. Dr. Carl E. Whitcomb, Ph.D  in his book "Plant Production In Containers-11" recommends a 3-1-1 mix made from 3 parts 1/4"pine bark (or other conifer barks), plus 1 part good Canadian peat, plus 1 part concrete sand.  I've used this mix with citrus and it works well.  Other growers I know use what is called a 5-1-1 medium, which consists of 5 parts small bark, 1 part peat moss, and 1 part perlite.  This medium also is reported to work well, but requires very frequent watering, and has a very fast water pass through (which might not work well in your Mother-In-Laws living room rug.   

Is this the tree we are talking about?
https://www.amazon.com/Red-Lime-Tree-Bearing-Branched/dp/B074W9TTNN/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1509732000&sr=8-4&keywords=red+lime+tree

Recently I've been reading advice that when a container tree has a couple inches of the root ball cut and then the tree being put back into the same container, that trimming back the foliage is not necessary.  Also when I fertilize a tree I dissolve the fertilizer  and pure it over the entire surface of the root ball, so that the entire root ball is evenly whetted..