Grafting citrus seedlings onto mature citrus?

I’m growing some Seville orange and calamondin/calamansi seedlings, and I’d like to try to graft from each onto my mature Eureka lemon (on semi-dwarf rootstock). What is the technique for grafting from a seedling onto a mature plant, and how large do my seedlings need to be?

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I’m watching this thread with interest as I plan to do something similar. I have several Shiranui/Dekopon seedlings that would benefit from robust rootstock.

However I don’t believe you will advance the date of first fruit. Citrus will take atleast 5 years to come into fruit -likely longer if grown from seed.

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Oh, I hadn’t even though about date of first fruit; I’m just doing this because I don’t have room for more citrus trees and I haven’t been able to find budwood of these varieties. Though, now that you mention the whole 5+ years thing, maybe I should look a little harder for budwood :grimacing: !

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@mc510
Fruit mentor web site and YouTube Vidios , has the best info regarding citrus propagation I have seen.
Also info on CCPP bud wood program
fruitmentor™ - Page 3 of 11 - Helping those who grow and eat the most delicious fruit.

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Also worth attention, citrus is known for producing nucellar seedlings. This means that a citrus grown from seed often reproduces the parent plant instead of a seedling from pollination. This is one way of cleaning up virus problems in citrus, by growing out nucellar seedlings which are virus free.

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Huh, that’s really interesting; I’ve actually never heard of nucellar seedlings. I had heard that citrus seeds usually come true, but didn’t know why. Thanks for explaining!

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Grow the seedling out to around 1/4 inch in diameter. The bud wood must be mature but not woody, just like any other bud wood. I’ve grafted seeding bud wood to root stock several times, the latest being sugar belle and dekopan seedlings. They flowered in around the 5th year. Sugar belle is only available outside of Florida by growing out seedlings. I’ve now taken flowering sugar belle bud wood and top worked a large tree with it. You can use any technique. I like to use bark grafting to the top of the tree. Make sure the graft is the highest bud on the tree to make sure it grows out with forcing.

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Oh, this is another thing that I hadn’t anticipated. What I’m envisioning is to graft onto a mature lemon tree, so that I’ll have a few branches of these different varieties. Primarily because I don’t have room for more trees. But this means that my grafts will be fairly low on the tree. I guess once the grafts take, I can snip off the rest of the branch above the graft. Hope that’s good enough.

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Here is how I do it. If the bud is not the highest on the tree it may never grow. This tree is seedling sugar belle on top and pixie on the bottom. Another is cara cara on top and gold nugget on the bottom. A third is bream tarocco on the top and valentine on the bottom. A forth is smith red blood on the top and lemonade on the bottom. Another is shiranui on the top and seville on the bottom. The bark grafts shown have been growing for only 2 months and are two feet tall already. Tree is on a vigorous rootstock, citrange.

Imgur

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