My meyer lemons are splitting and it is December.. Here in Sacramento we have gone between severe drought for almost a year to a short rainy season and now to cold weather. About all the fruit on this tree is split and some of it is way to high to reach. Does this fruit need to be removed? How do I stop this from continuing.. and can it be stopped in order to save the existing fruit or is it going to happen to all the fruit? Does this tree need to be covered now and with what and for how many hours per day? Our temp during the day is about 69 or 7o and at night right now about 50 I think.
Unfortunately many citrus fruit can split under certain conditions, one of which is wild swings in moisture content in the soil. Here is a good article on some of the causes. Generally, keeping the tree reasonably well watered will keep splitting from happening. While it is best to remove the split fruit, it is not absolutely necessary. It will drop on its own in time. Meyers are perfectly comfortable with 50F. I keep mine in a cool greenhouse where it drops to about 38F and they are perfectly happy. The important thing is to keep it from freezing if possible. If it freezes then you would most likely lose all the fruit, but the tree will be ok down to about 24F before real damage.
The following is another article on citrus fruit split: Fruit Splitting in Navel Oranges. It recommends the removal of such fruit.
can u still use the split ones for juice or are they infected w fungi etc.? I have to drink hot water, honey and lemon every morning for my lung disease. and i would hate to have to discard them all.. I cant even reach them all.
The following are articles on cold protection. Note that Meyer lemons are hardier than other varieties of lemons such as Lisbon and Eureka. Avoiding Cold Damage to Home Citrus (.pdf) How to Cover a Lemon Tree to Prevent Frost
Perhaps you should avoid the damaged ones, just to be safe, because of your existing condition. Personally I would inspect the fruit and discard the ones that have any sign of infection.
You might want to prune your lemon in the form of a giant grape vine. The photo here is an apple like that. The basic idea is to grow less fruit, or even none, that you can't reach from standing on the ground. Co-incidentally, it is easier to cover when frosts come your way. You can't do this overnight, but you can start the process and have a perfect tree after some years and a whole new top architecture. You can grow it into a straight line or a flat wheel shape to fit your landscape. The fact that I'm a short person has no bearing on this advice. With every fruit close enough to pick from the ground, you can cull the crop more easily. If you remove 50% of a crop, the remaining fruit will be bigger.
