I have cut down an old orange tree, about 8" trunk diameter. I’m having the stump ground tomorrow with the hopes that I can plant a new tree in its place. Will I be able to do that if the whole taproot is not taken out? Should I plant off to the side of the stump?
Donny, sort of depends how old the tree is. Usually, tap roots will recede with older trees. At it’s deepest, it probably won’t be more than 3 or 4’ deep. I wouldn’t worry about planting on top of it. Any other tree will simply direct its tap root around anything that might be left deeper than was ground out.
Citrus are usually planted as grafted trees and not grown from seed. The rootstocks are themselves clones and thus in most cases there is no taproot. If the rootstock was for a standard size (not dwarfed) tree then the “root ball” could be significant, otherwise I’d expect a relatively shallow root system.
Thanks Patty and Richard, those are exactly the answers I was hoping for.
Stump grinder came today. He got about 20" deep and then stopped. I think that should be deep enough to plant a 15 gallon tree.
2 Likes