Thank you, Alice. I will take some lemons to another nursery for
another opinion.

"alice" wrote in message
...
Rough lemon rootstock is the stock upon which a named citrus plant is
grafted..Like Roses, the root stock can take over the plant so that the
original tree that was supposed to be giving you fruit is no longer
producing and the *root stock* has taken over. The root stock is tough and
hard to kill which is the purpose..your graft may be underneath the soil
but it is probably there, producing the crappy fruit that you are now
getting. I think lack of the right growing conditions on a named citrus
tree would produce small, few fruit but not what you discribe..


"G Burton" wrote in message
...
I'm very much a layman at gardening. What is a "rough lemon
rootstock"?

How could it be getting too much nitrogen? I just feed it citrus
food. Sometime I put nitrogen fertilizer on the lawn, but that is a small
portion of the area under the tree.


"omi" wrote in message
news
"G Burton" wrote in message
...
The lemons on my tree have very thick skins and the fruit is
extremely
sour. I live in zone 14. The tree had been neglected for at least 5
years and was badly infested with scale, but that is under control now.
I thought that it might be a bad variety of lemon, but my local
nurseryman looked at one of my lemons and told me that was not the case.
He also told me that thick skins and sour fruit go together and are both
symptoms of a tree that is starved of minerals. He then sold me and
iron, sulfur, manganese, zinc mixture called F.S.T. I am also feeding
it Citrus food.
Well I have been tossing down a handful F.S.T. and citrus food once
every 6 weeks for about a year now, but the lemons are still horribly
sour and the skins are still thick. Much of the roots are under our
lawn, so I have been spreading F.S.T. and citrus food on my lawn as
well, but it doesn't seem to hurt it. Our soil is heavy clay. It may
just be that it takes a very long time for the F.S.T. and citrus food to
work its way down, but I was hoping for results by now.
Opinions and suggestions please.

Thick skins are often due to too much nitrogen. Could it also be due to
shoots from a rough lemon rootstock that have taken over? Olin