A young container mandarin has crossing scaffold branches off the trunk. I've seen this is many citrus trees and eventually they are removed as they push into each other, but I've also seen many "merge" together and look very awkward.

I would've removed the smaller branch (on the left) immediately, but it serves approx. 60% of the foliage. However, now is the perfect time since it hasn't flushed yet so I don't want to waste root energy producing new shoots that will be eliminated after. I'd rather the energy go into the new branches on its first flush of the season. The branch to remain has a nice thick point-of-attachment so it should uptake nutrients just fine.

What would you do?

Guess I'll reply to myself. My goal is remove the crossing, thinner trunk that supports 60% of the foliage without the tree noticing much.

I went ahead and trained (bent and tied down) the offending "trunk" to as downward a position as it could support, to pull it away from the good trunk I want to keep. I also put a spacer between it and the stake to distribute the pressure a bit. I then removed all the limbs that were now pointed upward, resulting from the training. I will pinch off all new shoots from offending trunk.

My idea is to slowly reduce the nutrient flow to the offending trunk, which is targeted for elimination. This also frees up the good trunk from rubbing pressure, increasing nutrient flow and giving it more canopy light. This is to channel all energy & new growth to the good trunk, so it can build more supportive foliage. Between growth flushes, I will remove some branches from the offending trunk, using thinning cuts (never heading cuts). Once the last cut leaves no further branching (late Fall) I"ll saw off the offending trunk from it's attachment point at the base rootstock.

It sounds like a lot of work but it's really only 3 steps. The first one training the limb down (and light prune) and a couple more prunes later in the year until I cut the trunk off in Fall.

Don't know if it will work, but it makes sense to me so far. As always, I'm open to ideas or corrections.

Unless you want a single trunck based tree I don't see anything wrong with it.

I see it more beautiful this way.

I like the idea of multiple trunk -- I already own too many straight & perfect single trunk citrus. But I've seen this setup cause problems though in the long-run.

The thickening of both trunks AND the crossing-pattern won't cause problems later?