The only grapefruit scion material I have been able to obtain, other than seeds from the U.S., are a couple of young grafted Rio Red trees from my Agriculture Department. These trees are one year old and grafted using scions from a mature tree. If I, in turn, take scion wood from my young grafted grapefruit trees to grow more trees, would it be the equivilent of getting scion wood directly from a mature tree?

I'm mostly wondering whether the grafts I would make would still bear fruit earlier than growing from seed. I'm hoping that the maturation level of the scions I cut would still reflect the maturity of the original parent tree, even though I am taking it from a young, non-bearing, clone. Any knowledge on this would be appreciated!

John

Yes, and yes. Just the same as if taken from a old mature grapefruit tree. All that your new grafted trees would require to produce fruit is just to put a little growth on.- Millet 77

Yes, they would be from mature wood.

Laaz, Millet, thanks for your assessment.

I had doubts because I remember reading that fruiting of a seedling could be accelerated by grafting it onto a mature tree. It wasn't simply a matter of the mature tree pushing more sap, but rather the maturity of the rootstock tree in itself affected it. My thinking was that it might happen in reverse, too.

The above was discussed on a forum during the past year, either here or Tropical Fruit Forum, but I couldn't find it searching just now.