The Tropical Fruit Forum

Citrus => Citrus General Discussion => Topic started by: Olivier on June 11, 2021, 10:37:01 AM

Title: My Buddha's Hand tree won't stop flowering
Post by: Olivier on June 11, 2021, 10:37:01 AM
My tree started flowering a few months ago. Some fruits set, and I kept them on. 3 are remaining and they look like they're going to stay on the tree until they reach maturity.

However, the tree won't stop flowering instead of pushing new leaves and branches. I pick off the flowers, but they keep coming back. My tree is quite small and I would like it to grow bigger at this point.

It receives the same treatment as my other citrus trees, and the other ones are doing well. Is it typical of Buddha Hand trees to grow slow and constantly bloom?
Title: Re: My Buddha's Hand tree won't stop flowering
Post by: sc4001992 on June 11, 2021, 03:42:55 PM
Yeah I noticed the same thing on my recent grafts. My flowers start to form fruits, but eventually they all fell off since the grafted scion is only 6" long.
Title: Re: My Buddha's Hand tree won't stop flowering
Post by: poncirsguy on June 11, 2021, 05:50:39 PM
I had 2 New Zealand lemonade trees produce flowers and set fruit.  Then  even more flower coming the leaves started dropping in droves and the fruit all dropped.  Still more flowers and twigs started to die back.  It continued to flower and large branches died off.  What was once a very nice aggressively growing tree flowered heavily for 7 months non stop until it died.  No sign of root rot.  The tree on US897 roots took 6 months to die and the other on Seville sour took over 7months to die.  I saved one tree that is doing good by removing flower cluster with tweezer as soon as I could see them with a 10X magnifier.
Title: Re: My Buddha's Hand tree won't stop flowering
Post by: sc4001992 on June 11, 2021, 05:59:52 PM
Yes, I noticed the same thing with my NZ lemon graft. It had fruits early after I grafted it (less than 9 months), grew to full size fruits(2), and the grafted scion was only 5" long, not much leaves. I should have removed all the flowers and fruits since that graft is still the same size after 2yrs and leaves started falling off, the branch will probably die off soon. I had a second grafted scion done at same time which did not have any flowers/fruits until the second year and now that branch has grown large with multiple branches and very healthy. Moral of the story is to not let any small grafts have flowers and fruits, wait until all the branches grow out before letting them set fruit. My Buddha's hand is the same, the ones that I let flowers/fruits on first year grafts are growing very slow, the grafts with no flowers are growing much stronger.
Title: Re: My Buddha's Hand tree won't stop flowering
Post by: Olivier on June 12, 2021, 08:34:58 AM
Thanks for the replies.
I'll admit I'm a bit worried with the stories of trees dying.. I'll keep removing flowers aggressively and hope for the best hehe

Sc4001992, on which rootstock did you graft your Buddha's hand? I thought I read somewhere Buddha's hand did better on their own roots. My tree is a rooted cutting but seeing how it performs I'm starting to think it do better on a good rootstock
Title: Re: My Buddha's Hand tree won't stop flowering
Post by: poncirsguy on June 12, 2021, 09:02:47 AM
I had planned to let the fruits set then break them off.  The tree dropped all the set fruit to produce more flowers. 
Break your flowers off as soon as you can see them with a magnifier.  use tweezers.