Other than the fact that lemons don't offer any extra cold protection, are there any other reasons not to use lemons as rootstock?

I have about a dozen lemons seedlings that have sprouted (don't know the variety--just sunkist lemons from the store). I was thinking of grafting and giving them to friends as container citrus.

Skeet

Lemon rootstocks produce big quantities of fruit, but the quality is ALWAYS poor. Lemon rootstock is for commercial juice production where they want to emphasize quantity. They then mix with smaller amounts of other juices to get the right taste. An advantage of the lemon stock is rapid growth, it being more vigorous than other stock. However, this also results in poor taste. The most common complaint for orange varieties grown on lemon stock, is that they are not very sweet. - Millet

Thanks Millet,
I guess I will just grow them as lemon and graft mature stock on them. Are there any varieties that do well on lemon? Grapefruit maybe?

How about lemon as interstock? I am about to graft several varieties on my Lisbon lemon.

-- Skeet

Lemon seedlings may not be as tolerant to root diseases as the common hardy rootstocks. That said, there are plenty of lemon seedlings that seem to do fine around here. Buds of other lemons, ponderosa, citrons, limes etc should not be as affected by the fruit quality issues. Grapefruit might be a little more bitter on lemon than on others ?? Depends how you like them.

I really wanted a personal experience on this one. Or is there a book or refrence material you got this from?

I don't think there would be many trees propagated on true lemons,
( Eureka, Lisbon etc ). The "Lemon" rootstock would be Rough lemon, Red rough lemon, Khatta lemon etc. Cuban Shaddock and Volkameriana could also be considered. These are quite commonly used rootstocks. There is an orchard near here, where some of the trees are sprouting rough lemon suckers. The mandarins on the rest of the tree taste fine to me, there is no sourness etc etc and certainly taste far better than any store bought fruit that has been in storage a while.
The practices of commercial orchards need to overcome the post harvest problems of packing and shipping, storage time, shelf life, all of which lower the fruit quality over time. They need very high quality fruit to get a high quality fruit on the shelf. Not all of this will matter to a home gardener, and even less to those with small trees with just a few fruit.

I have not seen any lower quality on any of the fruit that I can compare directly. My Hamlin oranges were plenty sweet, and my Page mandarins were as good as any I can remember. I will have Ponkans and Minneola Tangelos to compare side by side this fall.

As pagnr points out most of the commercial citrus on lemon is rough lemon, but the other difference here is that my Lisbon lemon is an interstock--the rootstock here is still trifoliata.

There is lots of different information on the fruit quality of Oranges and Mandarins, even specific varieties, on various rootstocks, in the many Citrus growing areas of the world. As for Lemons and Limes etc on lemon stock, I have not heard the reverse where they become extra sweet or so on, when grown on quality inducing stocks. Some could hardly get more sour ??