I'm sorry to be bothering everyone with my questions, but I can't find any info on the web about this.

I just thought of this the other day, I don't know if my citrus trees are on dwarf rootstock or not. I can't remember my conversations with the nursery-man about them, but as most of you already know, they are planted in the ground. If they are dwarf, how do I know? Are they okay in the ground, if they do happen to be dwarf? They haven't grown much in the passed two years, my meyer and thompson pink g-fruit have gotten only slightly larger.
A lot of resources I've read state that citrus have the potential to grow approx. 1 foot per year, but that is mostly for non-dwarf, under satisfactory conditions. Satisfactory meaning adequate water/fertilizer, etc, to ensure the tree survives.

I have a feeling that my key lime and valencia may be dwarf because they haven't grown at all in the passed two years, my key has actually gotten smaller b/c I had to cut dead top and side growth, now it's only about 8" tall. I don't think that's right, only 8" at at least 3 years of age?? I'm not sure about the others. Does this make a difference if they are in the ground??

Thank you!
Christine

Being your in northeast FL you will want a hardy rootstock like trifoliata. A Key lime in your location will need protection most winters. If your trees are on dwarf rootstock I would assume they are on Flying Dragon which is a trifoliata rootstock. Your trees should show nice growth every year... I have a two year old Key lime from seed that is over 6 ft tall. At 8" I say you have a problem.

From time to time a sucker branch should sprout from below the graft line. Watch for it. If the sucker is trifoliate, in other words, has a leaf made up of three leaf blades, shaped like a clover, then your root stock is indeed one of the trifoliates, probably Flying Dragon, which is a dwarf rootstock. Are you watering your tree on a regular basis, and are you fertilizing the tree 5 times a year. In Florida you can fertilize using a formula such as 6-6-6 or 8-8-8. Both of these fertilizer formulas should be easy to find. If you use the 8-8-8 formulat apply 4 to 8 pounds of fertilizer in total per year, divided into 5 applications. For a small tree apply the fertilizer uniformly in a 3 ft. diameter circle around the tree. As the tree becomes older, the area fertilized should be enlarged as the root system expands. As a rule of thumb, fertilize an area twice the diameter of the tree canopy. - Millet

Thank you Laaz and Millet. I just pulled off a large sucker the other day from my Key Lime, and I've been rubbing the sucker buds off when they first appear. I will leave them until the new leaves form and see if they are what you described.

I know that 8" at 3 years is a huge problem. Obviously I'm doing something wrong. Last year the trees were fertilized only 3x.
My valencia is only about 2' at around 3 years.

This year, so far the tree has been fertilized once, and is not due for another round for about 2 weeks. I'm using 6-4-6 Citrus fertilizer, and both the valencia and key received approx. 1lb. The meyer and thompson received approx. 2lbs. I only purchased this one because the higher ratio fertilizers did not have as many micronutrients as this did.

Something odd about my key lime though, the size of the tree is very small compared to the roots. I was weeding a few weeks ago, and unfortunately yanked out a huge root that belonged to the key. The root was about 3 ft long and about 2x the diameter of the trunk of the lime. It was a lot larger, because it didn't come off at the root ball and the end of the root is still in the ground. What's that about?

Laaz, is your key lime in ground or in a container? Mine is in the ground which could have a lot to do with it's size In a container, elements can be more closely controlled, soil pH, fertilizer, micronutrients, etc; they can be guaranteed to be absorbed by the intended tree's roots. I've already decided that I'm going to pot the key lime in the fall, mainly due to the few cold nights we have here in N. Fl during the winter, but I'm going to leave the three others in the ground.

It has been pretty dry here for the passed few months, no real significant rainfall. I noticed that they were dry the other day, so I "flooded" them, the water was almost immediately absorbed into the ground, so there should be no problems with that much water. It should last them maybe a week or so since it's hot and dry here now.

Christine

To add to Millet's post: Since there are several popular rootstocks in Florida with trifoliate leaves, here's some information for differentiating them:

1. Flying Dragon -- small leaves (usually 1 inch or less overall), with small, approximately equal-sized 3 leaflets. Thorns are strongly curved, often a full 180 degree bend.

2. Other pure Poncirus trifoliata -- as above, but with straight thorns

3. Carrizo citrange-- leaves larger, overall size (all three leaflets combined) approaching the size of a regular orange leaf. The central leaflet is bigger than the two side leaflets, but not nearly as large as a sweet orange leaf.

4. Swingle citrumelo -- leaves very much larger, with the central leaflet approaching the size of a sweet orange leaf.

Other considerations: Carrizo forms a graft union in which the wood above and below the union remain approximately the same thickness. Swingle makes a noticeably thicker stem below the union than above. And all of the pure Poncirus (including FD) make the thickest, most fluted-looking wood below the union of all. Swingle will show some fluting (departure from being a perfect cylinder; rather, it has "lobes"), but not nearly to the extent of a pure Poncirus.

Swingle bark is the lightest colored of all; it looks nearly white when compared to the scion bark. The others will be a deeper shade of gray, more closely matching the bark of the scion.

Since perhaps 90% of all Florida citrus is budded to 'Swingle' these days, unless you bought the tree from a nursery specializing in trees for home gardens, I'd guess that it is on Swingle. We have no production on Poncirus at all, at the commercial grove level. But there are specialty nurseries that use it for home landscape trees.

Thanks for the detailed information Malcolm.

mckh my 6' Key lime is in the ground. I have three others the same age that are in containers. They are about 2'-3' in size but still producing their first flush of fruit.

Also on the Swingle, it is a much more vigorous rootstock than the Poncirus producing larger trees. Bonnie Childers just mailed me that he budded a Satsuma to Swingle & the bud forced & is now over 19" long.

for fruit production and mechanical efficiency. you have to pick rootstocks that will make your orchard efficient and high yielding. You don't want laborers stooping down to harvest fruits from ultra-dwarf trees for example.

A home grower or a hobbyist often will have different objectives. Maximize harvest quality, beauty of trees, and sometimes other crazy reasons that are non-profit.

Such as "addiction".
Oh, I am sick. Those citrus are calling me again!
Just today I did some banana graft and Majorcan graft to my plouts and clemenule from Spain.
I wanted to try these new method.

Wow, Malcolm. Thank you for that information! Very short and to the point descriptions. Wonderful!

I purchased the trees from Ace Hardware and from a semi-local nursery. I should have taken the tags off of the trees and held on to them. I vaguely remember another name on the tags other than the type of tree.

Thank you, now I can't wait for a sucker to start growing.

Christine

Joereal's reply is certainly true for Flying Dragon, specifically. But we also don't use the standard-size Poncirus rootstocks. Several reasons:

1. It is perhaps more susceptible to citrus blight disease than any other rootstock. Interestingly, Flying Dragon is NOT susceptible.

2. P.t. is better adapted to very acidic, heavy organic/clay soils, and most of our industry is planted on lighter, sandy, less acid soils.

3. It was once popular in the northern edges of the industry, since it is so cold-hardy, but the freezes of 1962, 1977, and the early '80s wiped out even those trees. So the growers who remain do not have a "tradition" of using it as a stock, and commercially, we tend to plant the same stocks as the neighbors are planting.

4. Besides cold-hardiness, it has no obvious advantages over our more popular stocks.

Flying dragon rootstock is my favorite here in the northern most fringes of the citrus belt near Houston, TX. Flying dragon produces a much larger tree than most of you would think of as "dwarf." It is not dwarf like a truly dwarf apple tree can be which can be as small as 4 feet high. The FD rootstock citrus trees can eventually reach 10 feet tall and wide. Fruit quality is excellent with trifoliate or flying dragon. Trifolaite/flying dragon is the best rootstock here because it provides the cold hardiness edge needed for our occasional few hours of 20F weather. On those night, citrus on sour orange or swingle are much more likely to freeze out.

Our soil here is 100% black clay that can be dug up and fired into red bricks as is. I grow citrus on raised sandy beds, but they can survive in clay if the clay is not amended when planting which tends to make a "bathtub" in the ground that drowns the tree.

Interesting that some meyer lemons I grew on flying dragon rootstock in the ground were bigger 1 year after budding than the ones I budded to trifoliate! I believe flying dragon trees can be kept smaller by underfertilizing them. After about 5 years in the ground FD rootstock trees in my back yard are about 60% as large as the trifoliate rootstock ones. Swingle trees are twice as big as the ones on trifoliate.

Budded swingle rootstock trees here are much more vigorous than than on trifoliate. I can grow a swingle rootstock in the ground large enough to bud by October 1 planting the seed in March 1. Trifoliate or flying dragon takes two years in the ground to get big enough. The largest trees I get are the ones on swingle. The caliper will be twice as large for the same amount of time. Vigorous is not something you want in a rootstock where citrus can get frozen out.

This is my third year of selling budded citrus trees, mostly satsuma. I've sold upwards of 500 trees. It's a hobby that got out of control.

This is a picture of a "mature" pink grapefruit on flyingdragon from a few years ago. However, citrus don't stop growing and the tree is larger now. My friend is 6 feet tall.

Build a greenhouse over your FD rootstock tree and cover for freezes.

Swingle is a very vigorous understock. Today I measured a satsuma that was budded to Swingle last fall. It has made more than 32 inches of growth and is still growing on the same flush of growth. we get budding size trees with Flying dragon and Trifoliata orange in one growing season.