My lemon plant has a few buds right now. It has had flowers before, but has yet to produce a single fruit. We don't have any honey bees in our yard anymore, so I wonder if that's the problem.
It seems that I might have to try to do some pollinating myself when the buds open up. No?
I found this info:
To manually pollinate lemons, you need to have a clear idea of where the flower’s sexual parts lie. Look carefully into a lemon flower. You’ll see one long filament in the center of the flower. This is termed the pistil and contains the female parts of the flower. The stigma is on the top of the pistil. When it is receptive to pollen, the stigma is sticky. The other filaments in the center of the flower are the male parts, collectively termed the stamen. You can see the yellow pollen grains in the sacks, called anthers, at the top of the filaments. To accomplish hand pollination of your lemon tree flowers, you transfer ripe pollen to the sticky stigma. You can manually pollinate lemons in this manner with a small paint brush or a bird feather. It is difficult to determine which flowers have pollen that is ripe. To easily pollinate lemon trees by hand, simply touch each flower with the tip of the paint brush or feather to gather the pollen, then brush each stigmas with it in turn.
Unfortunately, I do not have "a clear idea of where the flower's sexual parts lie", but somehow I need to get some ripe pollen onto some sticky stigma.
If anybody has any tips for me, can you let me know?
11 comments:
j: My little lemon tree is so prolific yet I totally ignore it. I don't really water it - it's only 3' tall and yet so many lemons that many rot off. It's been producing orange size lemons too. I don't see bees, except the occasional carpenter bees and I spend a lot of time in the backyard. But somehow everything flowers/fruits. I was thinking maybe it's the difference in altitude....it's always cool/cold up here and you're at sea level and your area is warm/hot and dry. The one plant that doesn't do well is my pikake plants, not hot enough for them.-N
N, your plant is only 3' tall? So perfect! You're right about it being hot here . . . sometimes it's like an oven outside.
I am pretty sure you will be able to figure it out once the flower opens. I have faith in you! Please keep us updated, I would love to hear your story about trying to do it. You always crack me up. Good luck.
I didn't know flowers had sexual parts, lol.
Your butterflies can pollinate your lemons. Nature will take care. Good job on growing your little tree!
May be State Agricultural Department could answer your question.
cool! hope you can figure out how to pollinate it
Found it! All you need is a Q~Tip! Check this video! It describes the male flower and the female flower and shows you how to do it with close up video. Have FUN!
How to hand pollinate a Lemon tree. There are many other video's of how to pollinate a citrus tree on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSsP7_MFTeQ
LOL, okay, Alibaba.
Aunty, that's pretty much what N said about nature.
Chet, you're just like me . . . one time I called some State agency to ask about eggs.
Thanks Kat.
Thanks Mark! Will check it out.
Wow! I have no idea. Thank goodness we've still got some bees around. Phew!
Kay, I always liked honey bees, and I feel sad that their numbers seem to be diminishing.
I wish you success because that's a healthy looking lemon tree you have there!
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