I bought navel orange, but its bush lemon

kersti

I purchase navel orange tree, mandarin tree and dwarf lemon tree from Innisfail bunnings over 5 years ago after we bought our first property. This year we got our first fruit from so called navel orange but its not orange. It seems to be bush lemon instead(by look and taste). Now we have beautiful mandarin tree that's been giving us fruit over 2 years, lemon tree that's been full every year... and a bush lemon that we don't want as we already have lemons.. what could be done?!

MitchellMc

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @kersti. It's amazing to have you join us, and many thanks for your question about fruit trees.

I'm sorry to hear you've had issues with your navel orange. The first thing to do in situations like these is to check to see if the rootstock has taken over the grafted tree. That's the most likely explanation. Bush lemon is a hardy and robust tree often used as rootstock. If suckers are left unattended, they will quickly overrun the grafted navel orange. If you can take some pictures of the base of the tree about 150mm from the ground and from all sides, I can likely tell you if the rootstock has overrun the graft. We'd be looking for a definitive graft line to see if there is any growth from below it.

There is always a possibility that something has gone wrong, and the supplier mislabeled the plant. If this turns out to be the case, we would obviously look at refunding the cost of the plant for you. 

I look forward to seeing those images and assisting with this issue. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Mitchell