What’s Eating My Citrus?

Since many of us are growing citrus plants for the first time, we wanted to answer a few questions that viewers often send us. Al Seen is one of many who noted that they’ve noticed 

distinct damage to lemons for the past two years. This is a classic symptom of fruit scarring created by birds pecking while the fruit is young and the skin is just starting to develop.

From the archives, Regina DosReis wanted to know why her orange tree–that she started from seed–has never blossomed. At the time, we reached out to Monte Nesbitt, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Program Specialist, who told us that citrus is not hard to start from seed, and many even come true-to-type from seed, so it’s an inexpensive and easy approach to citrus tree propagation. Plants usually start out healthy too, but the bad news is that without budding or grafting, it’s a slow process to reach the flowering and fruiting stage of the tree’s life. Like many fruit trees, citrus have a juvenile phase, taking several years minimum before reaching fruit-bearing age. 

In the case of Regina’s tree, living in a container is also slowing down its growth, which will add additional time to the juvenile phase. If producing fruit is a priority, the tree could be planted in the ground, which would allow it more room to grow and thus speed up the process a bit, but in the landscape, you’ll need to be prepared to protect the tree from freezing in winter. 

Sometimes in spring, Jason Lantz is lucky enough to spot these gnarly-looking caterpillars on his lime tree. He told us, “It was pretty amazing to watch them for a week or so. They’ve been munching away at our lime tree and we let them go to town, since we love our butterfly and moth friends. After filling their bellies, they went right next door to the pineapple guava to pupate.” Great news, Jason! These will turn into giant swallowtails that lay their eggs exclusively on citrus plants.