Citrus > Citrus General Discussion

Pruning potted citrus to make them more compact.

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orangedays:
I have a Mayer lemon in a pot that has a weeping form. It sends out long sender branches and blooms and sets fruit on the branch tips. It then the branches bends and drops to the side and destabilize the pot. Its cumbersome to move about and doesn't look as nice as it would if the branches were sturdier and shorter.  I noticed and treated it for scale this spring which made it grow more vigorously but still the same long slender framework with fruit at the tips of the branches.

Is there a general practice for pruning potted citrus you can recommend. Thanks!

brian:
I have been re-grafting all of my citrus onto dwarfing rootstock because I run into this problem with some. 

My meyer lemon hasn't been all that vigorous, though.  I cut it back about a third every year, removing a whole section rather than just the newest growth (most citrus flower on new growth, so I assume this true meyer lemon).  My other lemons are extremly vigorous and I have to prune most of the growth regularly, so they have poor yields.  I am going to ditch the originals once the dwarf grafts take.

Millet:
You can prune as little or as much as you want.  But as Brian wrote, citrus produce fruit on the new growth, and pruning removes the new growth.  Therefore, the trees fruit production will greatly suffer from pruning.

orangedays:
I am wondering if by pruning that would create new growth that was bushy and more compacted and establish a strong frame to support future fruit.  I guess I should try and see but that means pruning off all the current fruit and flowers to get to an eventual hopefully better end-state. 

brian:
It is difficult because the new growth tends to be in the exterior which increases the size steadily.  To maintain a constant size for a vigorous tree I think you would need to prune every other year, sacrificing the years' crop as a reasult. 

My "remove a major limb" pruning approach gives a yearly crop but the trees end up misshapen and unattractive.

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