Citation rootstock

General Gardening
#1

Has anyone sucesfully propagated Citation rootstock?

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Commercial peaches superior to home grown?
#2

@itheweatherman, did you have any luck propagating citation? I’ve been wanting to do this since it is a good dwarfing rootstock.

#3

I tried air layering, but I had no success.

#4

Bummer, I’ve read that nurseries propagate it by cuttings. I’m gonna give it a try.

#5

I recently tried rooting about 20 citation cuttings, but no luck at all. I used dormant cuttings.

#6

I’m in the process of rooting 6 Citation cuttings (I used dormant cuttings as well). Don’t know yet what will be the result.

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#7

@Stan, keep us posted how it goes.

I wrapped the top half of cuttings in parafilm and applied some rooting hormone and scored the bottom end then stuck in promix soil.

Are you using a similar approach?

#8

None of the above. I just stuck the cuttings in the compost/DE mix. What containers did you use? I use 5x12 treepots.

#9

I just had them in small plastic cups.

#10

Soil in containers tends to be wetter towards the bottom. Therefore, tall pots (9" or taller) help to protect the bottom of the cutting from excess moisture and prevent rot.

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#11

I’m in south Central Texas (read not a lot of rain). For some reason my Pluots are doing ok (semivigorous) on Citation, but any peach and even my SpiceZee Nectaplum is hardly pushing growth (like 2-3" per year max). I’ve got several others on nemaguard, and they are just blowing up (very vigorous). I was wondering if any forum members have had any experience here as to why the Citation won’t push growth.

#12

I’m in west TX and Citation has usually given good vigor here. But it does stunt out sometimes for unknown reasons. It’s also sensitive to drought. Maybe you’d get better growth with more water.

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#13

I’m thinking so, will probably move these guys from 4 week to 2 week, and see if that helps. If it does, then I guess I need to switch rootstocks, at least for peaches.

#14

Hey fruitnut, what have you found to be the most water thrifty out there in west Texas (in ground)?

#15

Plums on Citation are fine here (SW CT, about an hour NE of NYC), but peaches and nectarines are dwarf to mini-dwarf (especially nectarines), even in our relatively rainy (compared to TX) conditions (and I mulch with wood chips).

As an experiment, I planted a peach on Citation at the bottom of my yard where it stays fairly moist year. It’s raised up about a foot, so no standing water, but never really dry. We’ll see how it does…

#16

Thanks for that insight Bob! The pluot doing well was throwing me off; glad to know others have had a similar experience. How have the peaches that are dwarfed perform as far as fruiting and longevity?

#17

I have a pluot and a nectarine both on citation. They’re both
dwarf trees, but produce as if they are full size. I do water them,
during drought conditions, but other wise, they rely on normal
rain fall.

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#18

I just planted 3 pluots a couple months ago. Two are on Myro and the other on Citation. C isn’t recommended here by the UK ag agency, for what reasons I don’t know, maybe because of winter hardiness. We get so much rain here, I doubt the drought issue would be a problem. Myro is OK here as far as I can tell from their site, maybe because it can handle the cold better. So, I am very interested to see how they compare, although they are three different varieties. They are really starting to leaf out after our cold, damp winter and early spring.

Folks on here like @Jwsemo have also commented that peaches and nects do poorly on Citation, but plums and pluots do well. He is a bit closer to you in climate.

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#19

The Elberta on Citation gave me ~10 peaches in year #3 (2017). The Gold Dust gave me 1 peach the 2nd or 3rd year, and since then it has been a struggle to keep a kiwi vine from completely shading it out. I hacked the kiwi back very hard this past fall and the Gold Dust is flowering at the moment (and about 6’ tall in year #6).

All 3 nectarines have fruited, but then rotted (often cracking too), even with fungicide (MFF). My best growing nectarine is about the same size (maybe slightly more spreading) in year #5 that a peach on Lovell was in year #2.

So peaches on Citation will fruit, but since the tree is so much smaller, it won’t be anywhere near the crop you could get from a tree on Lovell.

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#20

I have a peach on Citation that’s a runt, and I think I’m just going to try to dump nitrogen on it all this year to see if that helps at all.

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