onlyemes: thank you for your educated post, however from my extensive personal experience I must disagree. My Yanover esrogim nearly all have gartelach at maturity, but the stamen and anthers all fall off before the fruit is large enough to come in contact with them. In fact, if a stamen is retained, I find it causes bletlach near the bottom of the esrog. I also point out, as you hinted at, that the immature esrogim never have a gartel and it only develops later. If caused by pinching at an early stage, it would be hard to imagine there is no noticeable effect until later.
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