Question: I have a small lemon tree that I planted 3 years ago. It
had produced 1/2 a dozen fruit each year until this year, when it
produced over 6 dozen. The fruit looked great until it started raining
last week (I live in San Antonio). Now the fruit look as if it either
has some type of mold or burrowing insect is attacking it. What is the cause of the problem and is there a cure? Robert Sackett San Antonio

Answer: Don't you just love it when someone claims everything was OK
until "last week" or whenever? In this case, they are partly right. If
you look at the first image("a"), you will note that the leaves around
the fruit are fairly tattered--the damage to the fruit and the leaves
are both classic examples of damage caused by strong winds repeatedly
blowing them against adjacent thorns. That some of the fruit
scar/punctures are darker indicates that not all of it occurred
yesterday--though the majority may have been caused during the recent
storms.

Image "b" shows some leaf tattering, while the deep gouges in the fruit
look very much like bird damage (grackles do it in South Texas).
However, the condition of the exposed tissue and its color, plus the
surrounding puncture marks on the fruit, confirm a very bad case of
thorn puncture. I expect that if you were at the tree and could find
these particular fruit, you would see a couple of pretty hefty thorns
within just an inch or so.

The answer to the expected followup question is that all of the fruit
that persists on the tree will be edible, even if badly scarred. Those
fruit in which the damage penetrates to the juice vesicles quickly are
attacked by fungi and insects, so they rot and drop fairly soon after
the damage occurs.

Julian Sauls, Citrus Specialist for Texas Cooperative Extension