This is really interesting. How did the green spread in the albino plant? Did it start at the graft and spread upward and downward from that point? Was it a gradual change everywhere? How quickly did it change from white to green? Has anyone seen an albino plant spontaneously change to green without some outside influence like this graft?

Yes! This is very interesting, Terry.

JRB,

With both grafts the Green developed above the graft first. For a while on the first graft I noticed that the stock below the graft was still albino looking. But eventually I could see no difference.
It was a gradual change from albino to green color. It was over maybe 2 to 3 months with the area below the graft taking maybe twice that long.
The older graft trees show no sign of albinism as of yet.
Terry

I also find this fascinating, and hope someone can explain it! Enquiring minds want to know.

I found a tantalizing tidbit in The Citrus Industry (
http://lib.ucr.edu/agnic/webber/Vol2/Chapter2_2.htm#leafcomp):
"Pretreatment of citrus seeds with a mercury compound has been shown to affect the seed enzyme system in such a way that healthy instead of albinistic seedlings are produced (Perlberger and Reichert, 1938)."

Terry:approach graft with a albino and variegated ?

Shirlee,
If you look at the whole string of this post you’ll see that I used an albino seedling grafted to a normal seedling in both cases.
One was a albino sudachi seedling paired with a normal Sudachi.
The other is an albino Florida rough lemon seedling paired with a normal Florida rough lemon seedling.
There were no signs of variegation before or after the grafting.
Terry

Terry: albino seedling + variegated seedling = variegated

Shirlee, could you write regular sentences please.
We don't understand you.

I've never really understood albinism, because I have also read that treating seed with certain fungicides greatly reduces the incidence of albinism. This suggests it is caused by a fungus.
But I have also planted seeds from variegated citrus and there is no doubt they produce a high number of albino seedlings - suggesting a genetic cause.
Perhaps the production of chlorophyll is a process that can be easily disrupted (and restored) by several agents.
Another point. It has been said that true variegation can never be propagated by seed. This is definitely not true with citrus. I have grown identically variegated seedlings from variegated plants' seeds. Probably because citrus seedlings are often exact clones of the mother plant and not the result of pollination.

> there is no doubt they produce a high number of albino seedlings - suggesting a genetic cause.
True variegated citrus are said to be chimeras of "green" cells and albinos cells. As the seed is issued from one cell it might give a mix of green plants and albinos plants.

> I have grown identically variegated seedlings from variegated plants' seeds.
This is very astonishing! It shows that we don't know everything about it.

There are at least four types of seedling with abnormal chlorophyll.

Albino- seedlings germinate white and do not recover ability to photosynthesize. Then die when seed reserves exhausted.

Virescent- germinate with variable levels of chlorophyll. Gradually develop into fully green plants of normal appearance.

Variegated-green/white patterning of chlorophyll pigment. In my experience
seedlings become dominated by the stronger mainly green, then fully green areas of growth. As the seedling grows, some buds in the variegation pattern will be more green than white, and tend to take over. Finally a normal plant develops, apart from some variegated buds on the stem.

Infectious Variegation-can appear well after germination, as well as in new growth flushes on older plants.