I have had fruit trees for 15 years now. Here is what I do.
After it warms up in the spring.....maybe this coming week.....I will fertilize with 13-13-13. My trees are big and well established, so they need more "food" than younger trees.
For your 2- 3 year old trees, I would put 2 cups [maybe up to 4 cups depending on the size of the tree] around the outer edge [drip line]. This should be done in a week or two from now.
Some time in May or early June, I fertilize again with about 1/2 the amount of the first fertilizing. No more fertilizing after June.
Watering is critical during the spring and early summer. If the plants get too dry when the fruit is very small, the plant will "drop" a lot more fruit than normal.
Spraying with soapy water is probably not necessary, but some spraying to kill bugs maybe required.
This year, I would not pull all the fruit off the tree. Pull the smaller size fruit and leave some of the bigger ones. Next spring.....leave all fruit, the plant will drop the small weaker fruit.
We love the taste of the manderine fruit.....I have 2 trees, but this past year both trees [in different areas of my yard] did not produce good tasting fruit. The fruit was soft ball in size, thick skinned and did not taste very good. Don't know why this happened after ~12 years of great fruit.
I have had just the opposite experience with my Satsuma plant. It always produced a "soft ball" size fruit that had a very thick skin and not much taste. Many many times I almost cut the tree down to get rid of it. Then this year, the plant was loaded very good fruit that was a lot smaller in size.
My lemon and Orange trees took a big hit in the freezing weather this winter. All leaves are brown. Lemon tree may not produce any fruit this year or next year. Not sure what I will do to both of these trees. Probably will have to cut them down to 1/2 there size and see what happens. I will wait 4- 6 weeks to see if the plant starts to grow back on its own. The Lemon tree is ~ 15' tall.
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