Orange tree that became a lemon tree

I have a five year old citrus tree that produced fruit first in2007. At that time it had a sparse crop of oranges but one branch produced lemons. I thought it must have been grafted. This year it had a huge crop of nearly all lemons. They are not shaped like the Meyers but come to a point at the bottom. There were also a few oranges at the bottom of the tree. It was supposed to be an orange tree, what happened?

What a surprise! Do you remember where you got the tree? Do they sell grafted citrus there?

The tree was a gift, probably purchased in California at Walmart or something. It was not tagged as grafted. I will try to ferret out the label to see what exactly it was. More later...

Finishing my lemon/orange tree ID: it is a Satsuma Mandarin and it came from Lowes so is probably pretty run-of-the-mill... at least until it decided to undergo a transformation. Also the original tree had almost no thorns and the new lemon persona is very thorny. I have heard of citrus undergoing a "reversion" is that what 's going on? Help!

porkpal, can you locate where the graft is at or near the base of your tree? Is all the growth producing your citrus fruit above that graft? If you have suckers coming from the root stock it may be what is producing your lemons. If this is not the case I would sure like to hear more about what is going on. Very interesting. Don

The graft is very low - ground level - all the growth is coming from above it. (I do have an orange tree that had sprouts of the trifoliate rootstock coming up; this tree does not.) The orange/lemon tree is very large and densely branched so it's difficult to isolate the source of each branch, but the remaining orange producers are definitely low down and the tallest parts bear only lemons. The lemon parts have slightly larger leaves and MUCH larger thorns, which also interfere with close investigation. The whole thing is wildly healthy and produced several hundred fruit (mostly lemons) this year. (?) I grew some cuttings of it last year but it will be years before I can tell what they will be. I plan to get some more this year from each part of the tree.

Here is a link to the identical senario. Apparently some people use a lemon rootstock.

http://www.ubcbotanicalgarden.org/forums/showthread.php?t=21808

Very interesting! As I said, it's hard to tell what comes form where on my tree but there is only one trunk so it doesn't look as if there is any growth coming from the root stock. At least my tree makes good lemons - really big and juicy!

porkpal, this gets curiouser and curiouser. How tall is the trunk above the graft union before the first branch? Sure would like to hear from someone who has encountered this before and can explain it. Is your tree in the ground? How tall is it overall? I have heard of citrus throwing a sport (I think that is what it is called) on just one branch before. Don

The tree is in the ground and it is quite large and unruly. The trunk is about 8-10" in diameter and splits into three about 14" up. These little trunks look identical and they each divide several times as they go up. Some of the branches have big thorns some do not but the tree is such a jungle I can't tell whether all the thorned branches come from the same trunklet or not. Most of the fruit is gone now, but there are definitely lemons on both the thorned and the less thorned branches. The whole tree is about 15' tall and 7' wide. I think it is going to require a major pruning to sort it out - not a bad plan; I don't need hundreds of lemons again next year!

if you can...i would love to see pics of this tree...virginia

Hi I'm Oscar from Florida and there is a kind of grafted citrus called cocktail and has diferent fruits in a single tree

Oscar, the fruit cocktail sounds really neat; I wish that was what I had but I really think that mine must be a case of the root stock taking over. I didn't know they ever used "good" citrus for root stock; I thought it was sour orange or trifoliate 0range. These are really nice lemons. We have an oak tree that looks like a single tree but in its youth was actually two trees growing close together. The trunks eventually merged and it now looks like a single tree. I wonder whether that is not what happened to my orange tree: the root stock sent up one or more shoots next to the orange trunk and they have grown together. The bark on all my various citrus trees looks much the same when young. Any thoughts?
I may learn more when I prune it back a lot. Virginia, a picture of it now would just show a huge bush - no definition.

Porkpal, branches coming from the rootstock are more vigorous than the grafted branches. Eventually all you will have is lemons if you don't remove the lemon branches. You could just let it go as it is and get another Satsuma making sure there is only one "trunk" above the graft union.

You can prune the thorns off without damaging the tree. Leave a minute thorn stub rather than cutting flush to avoid hurting the tender bark.

Well the lemon part is certainly vigorous! I do intend to prune it back a lot, but at the moment , I can't tell which parts are lemon and which are orange, so it will all be reduced to a more manageable size. I guess it would be okay if it did become a lemon-only tree; I have other Satsumas. I may not get it all sorted out until it sets fruit next year. There are way too many thorns and tree altogether to go in for any thorn pruning, but once it is smaller I may try that too. It would certainly make it more pleasant to handle. Thanks bettydee.

Oh, I'd just let it be and see what it morphs into next!

That may well be what happens. I don't always get around to doing half of the things I have planned. It is an interesting puzzle!

I would just let it go at this point. Just an oddity in your yard now. You never said wether you care if you get lemons or oranges??? Sounds like a decent size tree.

I should prune it some as it is encroaching on my Myer Lemon. It was so heavily laden with fruit that many of the branches bent over nearly double and are now sticking out at odd angles. The lemons were good and I have other orange trees; I will mostly just let it do its thing. I think it needs a name. Any suggestions?

Call it Proteus

Done! Thanks LTilton.