Myer's Lemon Dilemna

I have a ridiculous problem:
I have this fantastic 5 year old Myer's Lemon in the ground.
Last year it bore some 500+ fruits, is about 15 ft.
wide and 6 feet tall. It overwinters with Xmas lights
that come on at dusk.

A pesky squirrel that has since met his maker used to
strip my pecan trees. He buried one under this fruit
tree and it sprouted. It is about two feet tall almost
directly next to the trunk. My experience with pecans
is that the tap roots go soooo deep I have no hope of
digging this out, especially since I'd need a suit of armour
just to get at it. Also, I used to do container gardening
near my pecans on a slab. When the loose pecan stuff started
to fall it would kill almost anything in a pot, just like
my old black walnuts did. So I quit that.

That leaves me in a bit of a fix. Should I:

A)Leave the tree alone, hope it doesn't adversely affect the
lemon, and maybe even give it some overhead coverage one day.

B)Chop it at the soil line every year.

C)Use something not-to-toxic like rock salt to kill it after
drilling it, and hope it doesn't hurt the lemon.

Dig down about three inches and clip. If that doesnt work you can always apply RoundUp with a Qtip to the leaves. I dont use Roundup personally but it will only effect the pecan and not poison the ground.
I have a three year old Improved Meyers Lemon and I have never protected it from the cold and I am zone 8b. Has yours ever shown cold damage?

Good luck

You don't have to do any digging, which would injure the lemon roots as they come right up almost to the surface. Use the "cut and paint" method recommended by TAMU. You will need a small amount of Ortho Brush Killer or a similar product, a small amount of surfactant or soap, a small disposable paint brush, a disposable plastic cup and a piece of plastic or cardboard to protect the lemon tree from accidentally coming into contact with the Brush Killer. Pour a small amount of the Brush Killer into the cup (You'll be using it to paint the cut surface.), add a drop or two of surfactant and stir. Cut the pecan top leaving a 2" or 3" stump. Quickly place the protective cardboard or plastic between the stump and the lemon tree. Paint the cut surface of the stump with the Brush Killer/surfactant mixture. Work quickly as the stump will start to seal itself within 10 minutes or so. The Brush Killer will work its way down to the pecan roots and kill them without harming the lemon tree. The pecan roots will eventually die and wither away.

That seems a much safer way than painting the leaves with a Qtip. I would agree with Betty on that one except do not use the Ortho Brush killer as it specifically states not to use it around edibles. I belief that the poison will stay in the decomposing roots for up to 90 days and be absorbed by the lemon tree. I know Roundup is used around the crops that we eat even though I dont truely trust it. They do have Roundups specifically for veggie gardens. Maybe that would be the best bet.

I forgot this aspect of having two trees growing too close together:

I would follow Betty's advice as she seems to think things out and give better details and descriptions than most.

Thanks for all the detailed feedback.

The pecan has been there about a year, which is when the squirrel died
and never got around to digging it up. I am hesitant to use any herbicide
around it: I don't even use Bonus-S near it and it's in a sea of nutsedge,
which actually helps keep out coons and deer.

I thought rocksalt would be more natural but apparently it is dangerous
too. I rot stumps with it all the time.

I'll try the cut and drill approach; can hardly wait to crawl in there with all
those thorns, makes me want to bleed just thinking about it.

Yes, one year three years ago I got freeze damage on the tree. A cold
snap took all the leaves off right to the middle. In Spring I cut it back to
about two feet wide and it has flourished ever since. Of course I use the
Xmas lights now...I string them throughout my little orchard: Meyers/Satsumi Mandarin/
Kimbrough Mandarin/Mystery Orange/Meyers Dwarf/Valencia Orange.
The lights have the added bonus of housing pollinators on some warm nights.

We are right on a 8b/9a/9b corner depending on proximity to the Guadalupe
and elevation. My direct neighbor is a master gardener and claims 8b, but I
grow papayas and bananas year round depending on location on the property.

Has anyone tried that new Grapefruit that is hardy down to zone 7a? It is hybrid of Flying Dragon and Grapefruit.

I had a pecan grow about 2' from my foundation and it was right in the corner of where the concrete sidewalk met the concrete patio. The root seemed to go on forever and I couldn't get at it to dig easily. When it got about 2' tall I took it down to the ground. The next year it was back. This routine was repeated for several years. I finally took a pick axe to it and went down about a foot. Those things are tough. I wonder if you took it down to a short stump and put a metal can over it for a year or so would the darkness stop it growing back.

I can just see the can rising into the air. The energy stored in the roots will be used to produce more green shoots. This can go on for years if the root system is large. The new shoots need to be removed as soon as they start to enlarge so they don't start sending energy back to the roots. The tree will eventually run out of energy and die.

Wow. I just got it out today, about 2 inches under the soil.
Only bleedin' four places. It already had three shoots
emerging from the soil, and where it is was VERY dark,
one inch or less from one of the Lemon trunks. I once
tried to dig up a volunteer pecan for transplant when it
was foot tall. When I was 3 feet down I gave up and severed the
tap root. It never made it in its new location, nor did it emerge
in the old one.

My neighbor next door claims he is in Zone 8 due to elevation
and a lifetime of planting. He has a grapefruit that gets about
300 big ones a year that is self-hybridized only in our valley.
Of course, pines and barns around change zones.

Two weeks later it's sprouting again. Maybe the overhead winter coverage would have helped?
My only papayas that sail through the winter here are under eaves.

Cut it's head off every time you see it and someday one or the other of you will give up. Actually that starves it by preventing any new photosynthesis. Eventually all the energy stored in the root will give out. At least that's how it's supposed to work.

Wow what a thread.....I wished I would of found it sooner. We also have pecan tree problems. Our is on the fence line with our neighbor (in neighbors yard). It has been there for about 10 years and has been giving us problems ever since. It is about 50 ft tall and maybe 36 inches around, it is a monster that my husband threatens to climb just to trim it. People who see it cant believe that it grew so fast.

I'm still trimming this puppy every few weeks.
I must say this is kind of perverse because I
have to water and fertilize it along with the lemon.
A drought is killing mature pines all over my area,
and if these fruit trees don't get wet every few days
they start to droop. This is the first day in months
it is only 90 and I feel like wearing a sweater.

I really don't get why a pecan would want to grow under a big meyers???? It's got to be dark and with you whacking the top off it should die.

BTW Meyers trees will take a lot of cold, we don't don't do anything to them around where I live in zone 9a.

I have had an unprotected one in 8b for years now.

Can someone tell me how long it takes a Meyer lemon to mature after the fruit sets?

Here's a bad answer, a long time. LOL> Outside in zone 9a they set fruit in the spring around April and are ripe somewhere around November. Like most citrus you can leave them on the tree for a long time (months) without picking them.

I'd already figured that! This is definitely not the citrus belt here. My plant will have to go inside in another month.

Yes. Mine flower in early spring and mature right before winter.

Mine has kept flowering and setting fruit all summer long.

This is the first time I've had such a plant - it's been a learning experience.

How about girdling the unwanted tree? The following is from wikipedia:

Girdling, also called ring barking or ring-barking, is the process of completely removing a strip of bark (consisting of Secondary Phloem tissue, cork cambium, and cork) around a tree's outer circumference, causing its death. Girdling occurs by deliberate human action (forestry and vandalism), accidentally (as in the case of new saplings tethered to a supporting stake), or by the feeding actions of some herbivores (who feed on bark at their height). It is most commonly used as a deliberate method of thinning forests and by farmers to yield larger fruits.

Not a bad idea: girdling.
I don't know why it would want to grow under this dark canopy but it seems to
have benefited by the fact that I had to water during our drought...and
fertilize.
This Myers has hundreds of fruits on it of all sizes. With less rain they
are smaller this year and maturing sooner. Last year I left some fruit on all
winter and they did OK near the middle of the tree.
Now the tree is blossoming again with all the fruit right there, and I have
GIGANTIC green flying beetles all over it making a mess of the blossoms.
I cannot tell if they are eating little bugs or the blossoms...they buzz and
plunder and look like iridescent June bugs. Wonder if anyone knows what
they are or if they are good/bad?
I know this: you have to leave the fruit on to mature; it doesn't turn any other
way, I have tried. The longer the sweeter. We still pick them green if we want
tart!
I think I probably over-protect this tree because once it frosted and set
it back about six months...it lost all the leaves to the very middle. It is out
in a windy unprotected place. Another year we actually had an ice storm
that killed some baby palms but I had covered the lemons.

My neighbor has a huge regular lemon that grew out of kitchen scrap seeds
and it does well right next to his house.

I have learned since that these adapt to
their surroundings over time, but am still nervous so I put up Xmas lights.

If it's this http://insects.tamu.edu/fieldguide/bimg142.html that's not good.

Great:
That's all I need. Attached is pic of one of these guys...dead.
Probably its their grubs eating my baby palm roots, too.
Thanks for the link.

Yeah, they're one of the primary grub species.

To anyone who wants to see what my lemon tree
looks like after a 14 hour freeze where it got down
as low as 25F. It also snowed (no accumulation)
but it came through that fine. I understand we may
get a second snow this year and that would be
the first double since 1880.

I had Xmas lights on this tree all night long (3
strands) and a few lemons I had left on to see how
they would come through it. You can still see the
burning, even a couple feet in.

Unfortunately, after a scalding drought all summer,
and very wet Fall, if this is global warming, it is also
causing weird weather where it is 80F during the
day and freezing at night. The trees and flowers
were in full bloom for this freeze.

Be good weather for a blood orange.

Poor thing!

That is so heartbreaking and you have my sympathy. It gets freaky cold here about every 10-12 years and wipes out lots of things. People replant and get to taking mild winters for granted. The weather has gone completely crazy and has me worried for a lot of my things. It's past due unfortunately. I just had 3 days of sunshine w/o rain and that's most unusual for the past 6 months.