There seem to be 2 types of red lemon usually available here in Europe sold as the citrus limone rosso , I think one is supposed to be a citron crossed with blood orange and another i think is lemon crossed with sweet orange

Also they have Rangpur that is often sold as red lime, I am told there is a red real lime as well?

I think I have the citron crossed one as its fruit is quite bumpy rough skin, it does smell of lemon when the skin is scratched

Can a dye be absorbed by citrus plants to adjust color of the fruit?

I have always believed that coloring a plant could only be done with a cut stem, roots filter out most if not all the dye if a plant is watered with it?

Searching the internet I have found that some red dyes will go through some roots of some plants, no exact details of dyes though

I was bought a red lemon tree for my birthday... one lemon on it , still yellow label on plant says citrus limon rosso

Unusually for the UK the plant was quite dry so I watered it, just water no feed, no sign of any slow release fertiliser in the pot, placed the plant in a bucket of water , water turned deep red.....very very red! , red enough to stain a piece of paper.....

I have had other plants from this supplier , same labels on them and standard lemons from them have no red color when watering....

So the question is..........

Does anyone else think this very red water was because the lemons never turn red in a lot of conditions .....so an attempt to make it red? ( or am I bad minded? ) ,

and does anyone know if a dye can be used ? what dye / chemical could be used for this?

I have no orange trees as in the UK it was too cold to make them sweet enough to eat, I have an old mandarin tree but its fruit is realy sour unless the weather gets very hot in the summer

I have a few old lemon trees and a mandarin that I have had in 200L pots for about 8 years, full grown trees I bought them that way though from a nursery, never reepotted 100%, just the edges chopped out and new compost packed in down the sides

This is probably the oldest, but I only bought it last year in July, a calamondin

It was cheaap on ebay.....

it had massive frost damage and twig dieback due to turning into a block of ice,  it had been left outside all winter with no protection in England, I paid very little for it... about £20 and a couple of gallon of diesel for the van

It has now mainly recovered after spending the last year under growlights and it seems to be quite healthy, it is now in Bulgaria outside

The seller had owned it for over 25 years and said the owner before him was a nursery that was closing. They had used this at the nursery as a display item and for taking bud wood from for about 15 to 20 years or more before that and it was just as big when they bought it from another nursery , he thought it was from reads nursery initially

He said it was repotted in the same pot by removing the top compost last march, just growing in a shop bought peat based potting compost

Im over in he UK at the minute, when I get back next week it is getting repotted in something decent into a bigger pot , the seller said it had been in this one at  least 10 years it might have been more....

It has to be at least something like 40 or 50 years old from what i was told

I have had in the past trees like this after the winter, with warm weather they grow new many shoots and are fine , quicker results by warming the roots and spraying with dilute fertiliser every day.

I now no longer have any winter leaf drop problems as all trees are kept with roots at around 30C as recommended by millet years ago on the other forum

I have recently bought a couple of variegated citrus a calamondin and a lemon, all new growth seems to be none variegated , every branch on both of them
the leaves havent got that large yet, the new growth on the lemon they are about 2 inch long but totally green , very healthy but also very very 100% green?

Does the variegation appear as the leaves age a bit?, or am I doing something to remove the variegation?

I can see one bit being un-variegated but this is 2 plants from different suppliers and every branch ,

I used to have a couple of other variegated citrus but I gave them away and cant remember if variegation was visible before the leaves were full size.

I have been spraying with harpin protein and starting to wonder if that has affected the variegation?

Has anyone tried the harpin protein on variegated citrus?