And all that I can see, is just another lemon tree

[bobleponge]

With apologies for the slight paraphrase.
I have grown a lemon tree from seed, with a lemon bought from a supermarket.
Its now 3 years old, apparently in good health and of a decent size.
I have just been told by Mme Pastis that apparently if your lemon tree has thorns (like mine) its sterile!
Can this be true? Have I grown this thing for nothing?

I have used the satanic search engine and some say yes and some say no. Anybody grown a tree from seed, with spikes and had fruit?

[Nicos]

Ha ha ha!!!!!...ooops- sorry...that's the sort of luck I have!

Fingers crossed...time will tell eh?

[FionaH]

Don't know much about them mate. We do have ones at work with thorns AND fruit though. I know this cos they hurt!

[Nicos]

OK- see what you mean about various comments on Google.
Seems like it depends on the variety

Be optimistic - go with the thought of 'why on earth would a plant bother to produce spikes if it wasn't going to have fruit needing protecting'!

Have to say- having seen said plant - it's rather a fine one.
Fingers crossed for you

[Two_Sheds]

We have (had) a 3' tall thorny lemon tree at school. I left it outside all winter (oops) because it kept attacking me (no, it's never had any fruit)

[starloc]

Most lemon trees have thorns, growers tend to chop them off a lot of the plants so people dont get worried by having them around and the thorns can cause a lot of damage to leaves and fruit in the wind

99% of citrus have giant thorns when young, some ( not many ) loose them once mature, even my giant trees that are suposed to be about 40 to 50 years old have 2 inch long thorns on them, as do the small ones from aldi

Seed grown lemons will always fruit, but you cant prune them at all if you want them to, they need to have a certain number of leaf nodes before they will flower, generaly about 7 to 10 years old and about 10 foot high

the problem with seed grow ones in many places is that citrus need to be under cover over the winter, if you get any frost damage on the tree you will prevent it getting enough leaf nodes so it will need to be kept warm enough over winter not to get any damage until it fruits , being 10 foot or more high it wont be easy to get it in/out the house

The easy way to get fruit from it would be to leave it growing till its old enough, but while waiting you could graft / bud a branch onto it using a cutting from a fruiting one