What is wrong with our lemon tree?

Question

We've had it for around 6-7years, and now it looks like this:

http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u339/miss_original19588/100_2623.jpg

http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u339/miss_original19588/100_2622.jpg

http://i517.photobucket.com/albums/u339/miss_original19588/100_2624.jpg

It is winter here in Australia, but its leaves started going yellow 4 weeks ago, it looked really sick - all withered. If you look at the end branches now, it's brown on the inside - not green. Is that normal?

My dad put some cows manure on it around 6 weeks ago and 4 weeks ago it started withering.

What is wrong with it/what can we do?

Btw, I know these are pretty bad pictures (my bad) but you can kind of see how the tips of the branches are brown.

- It looked like this 4 weeks ago, but the leaves were yellow.

Thanks for your answers :D

Answer 1

Ditto scraping off all that manure and trying to dilute the rest with massive amounts of water.  Please let your dad know the difference between manure and compost before he kills anything else.

Answer 2

it's dead. cut it back near ground level, it might resprout

Answer 3

It looks dead, but I notice there are some green bits.

First, get any remaining cow manure off the soil and give it a good watering several times over the next week or ten days to wash away any excess of the manure. Then cut back the branches to within a few inches of the trunk, then keep it watered and wait. Lemon trees have good recovery powers and you may get lucky with some new shoots.

Finally, try and keep the old boy away from the tree.

Answer 4

it is dead. it died cos manure was too strong for it - it turned soil acid. when soil is more acid then solution inside plant and its roots plant starts giving up water instead of receiving it from the ground. it dried and die of dehydration. next time be very careful with fertilizers. horse manure is very very strong fertilizer. it killed your plant. it is better not to fertilize than over fertilize

Answer 5

I assume the plant does not have some bacterial infection, tho that does look like th cause.  

Excess manure means wayyyyy tooo much salt on the soil and the salt causes the roots to loose water......yep, water is pulled back out of the roots and also kills the roots.  

First solution is to shovel off the manure if possible, then water, more like flood until the salts are washed down out of the root zone.  Cut the plant back and a few prayers are in order as well.

Lemons are real touchy with their soil, so no messing about.  Next time use compost........that's biologically decomposed manure and organic matter.  

And don't discount a bacterial infection........look for brown "bruises" on the trunk, soft spots.  Some diseases also produce a brown streak in the stems where the vascular system gets plugged.  You might want to cut some dead stems and infestigate.