Best Time Of Year To Prune Lime Trees?

[mhortig]

What is the best time of year to prune lime trees. My understanding is that pruning should be minimal, mainly toi control shape/height, remove dead and weak branches. Any tips from people who have healthy lime trees would be appreciated.

Edited December 21, 2013 by metisdead
Please do not post using all caps. Topic title edited to remove all caps. Post edited to remove bold font.

[teletiger]

Yeah, anybody with dead lime trees needn't apply. Humour aside, our lime trees at home don't seem to have a season. they grow, flower and fruit the whole year, although most prolific in the early rains. (MJJ) We do water in the winter.

Regards.

[Jotham79]

We only trimmed ours to keep the leaves and fruit off the ground say 40 cm. If you want more fruit there is a hormone you can use and get almost 3 crops a year. Keeping them well watered and well treated with manure will help.

[xen]

The other thing to do when pruning citrus is to open up the centre so a bit more light gets to the foliage and fruit in the centre and increase yeild a bit more. Then do a pH test and add lime if required (between 6-7 ) but don't add lime and fertiliser at the same time as the lime can cancel out the fertiliser somewhat .If you are in limestone country then skip the adding lime.

[stoli]

A lime tree is not an ornamental shrub, and after growing them my entire life in California, I have never seen nor heard of anyone trimming them back. Such a great tree with an abundance of fruit when left to it own devices. Just cut back any dead wood, and you are fine. Fruit trees, prune back; citrus trees, let them do their own thing.

[drtreelove]

A lime tree is not an ornamental shrub, and after growing them my entire life in California, I have never seen nor heard of anyone trimming them back. Such a great tree with an abundance of fruit when left to it own devices. Just cut back any dead wood, and you are fine. Fruit trees, prune back; citrus trees, let them do their own thing.

Your right that pruning should be minimal. And I agree with Stoli, except that I believe manao and other citrus can be both ornamental trees and productive fruit trees too, at the same time. The flower fragrance is intoxicating, a great garden tree. But not without several potential pest, disease and nutritional problems, and as Xen suggests, sensitive to soil mineral balance and fertility issues. Not the least is HLB or citrus greening disease, a serious tree killer bacterial disease in Chinese and northern Thailand orchards, and now around the world, vectored by the Asian citrus psyllid. Control this insect pest and you may control the disease. But how to do that is another discussion.

Pruning timing is 'whenever your saw is sharp' since there is no real defined season as Teletiger points out. But best when least flowering is happening, in order not to lose any more flowers or fruit than necessary. Just clean of deadwood and if you recognize structural defects, crossing branches, water sprouts and suckers and over crowding then correct these. My father managed citrus orchards in the US southwest and my first commercial pruning job at age 12 was for a mature production orange grove. I'll never forget the only pruning tool he gave me to use was a pair of leather gloves. He taught me to break out deadwood with a firm grip and quick twist of the wrist. There was no heading or thinning of the canopies which were allowed to grow a full skirt all the way to the ground for maximum production and shade for the stem. I have since come to know that some structural pruning for young trees, and light thinning like Xen recommends can be beneficial, especially for home orchard trees. Sometimes long branches develop that extend beyond the canopy and become heavy and prone to breakage. These can be shaped back or 'drop-crotched' to reduce branch end-weight and confined to a balanced canopy shape. Cut off suckers that develop from below the graft or from roots. If these are allowed, they can grow up through and dominate the canopy with vegetative growth that may or may not produce fruit that is from the root stock and not true to the grafted desirable fruiting stock.

Hope that helps. don

[namdocmai]

http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/agriculture/horticulture/citrus/management/nutrition/nutrition

This is a great website for citrus-growers.

My ruby red pomelo-tree has it's first flowers now, i hope i will get the first fruit.

I read some websites about citrus and some say we should prune and other say to not prune.

[xcell]

Pruning timing is 'whenever your saw is sharp' since there is no real defined season

Is it plausible to assume that (f.e. "jumpee") trees should be preferably trimmed in the dry season?; Due to the drought the water is retracted in the roots (the trees are loosing their leaves) and the tree can handle the trim better than if it would "stand in full juice".