I have a key lime grown from seed that is just starting to flower for the first time, and only on the upper branches that are mature. If I were to graft some of the mature wood to the lower, immature part of the tree would it continue to flower and ultimately produce fruit?

Yes, it would. Just make certain that you are using mature scion. This is what I am planning on doing with a seed-grown grapefruit, once it finally matures.

but how do you recognize a mature bud if there is no flower at that time and the tree is old enough?

thanks

Laaz, The sides of your trees must have grown out to also reach adequate node count. I see ancient (100+ years) here of orange and grapefruit, with zero flowers or fruit less than perhaps 20 feet high. the base truly never matures (just like all other tree species). Of course on those big old trees, there aren't a lot of wide-spreading branches that started low. So if you do have such a branch, it, too, would be counting nodes and would bloom, eventually.

From my understanding, I would have to agree with Skeeter. After a seedling tree has grown to the point that the required number of nodes has been reached, that node and all nodes higher in number will be mature and capable of blooming and fruiting. All nodes with numbers lower than the required number will always remain juvenile. HOWEVER, Lazz also has a point. Some of the branches below the branch that first reached the required node number, can grow out in length by producing node after node, and at the end of the branch a few nodes may reach a number higher than the required node number first produced on the above branch. Example: On the tenth branch up from the ground the node count starts with node number 10, which is the first node (leaf) closest to the trunk on branch 10. The second leaf (node) on that branch is node 11, then 12, then 13 and so on. The next higher branch, branch 11, starts with node 11. As branch 11 lengthens, the node count will be 11, 12, 13, 14.... Above branch 11 is the 12th branch above the ground which starts with node 12, and extending along that branch the count will be 12, 13, 14.... Lower branches on a tree are normally longer then the those above. (Millet 1,003-)

The Key lime has produced fruit from a new branch right off the main trunk. Millet you were here to see it for yourself. Maybe it's a freak tree as it is the same tree that matured a fruit at the end of a thorn last year.

Laaz, I'm wondering if the tree was mature at that level (Key lime has a very short juvenility period), from the start? The fact that a node is mature doesn't mean it will flower on the next flush; only that it's capable of doing so if the conditions are right.

Yesterday, on the Container Citrus forum, I wrote a post about my seedling Key Lime that produced its first flowers after only 1 year and 8 months from the date I planted the seed. After reading Dr. Manners post above, concerning the "very short juvenility period" of Key Limes, I went out to locate where exactly on the tree the first blooms appeared. I was AMAZIED to find out that the flowers are at the end of the first branch the tree produced, (the very bottom branch of the tree). The bottom branch is a relatively long branch, in relation to the tree's height. The two flowers are growing at the branch's 29th node distant from the trunk. I did not count of the vertical node count as the tree is growing more as a bush than a standard tree. - Millet (1,002-)

What is the node count for a seedling satsuma to bear fruit?