Dear all,

I am from the Netherland and I have 8 citrus plants (2 grape/2 lemon2 manderin2 orange). They are all from the supermarket, so I have to wait a while before i will see any fruit. That does not bother me that much, because I like the plants-->they are always green and they smell great!

But still, Is it possible to let them bloom and fruit? I am not sure, Should I prune them?
Thanks in advance!
bye

Hi Flapmeister, just my opinion to not prune them yet if at all.
Citrus grown from seed can take from 4 & up to 15 years to blossom & set fruit. I think your area is too cold to plant in ground so it may take longer growing in containers. Hope this isn't too discouraging!
I sent key lime seeds to someone in Netherlands 4 yrs. ago. Key limes will set fruit in just a couple years from seed. Good luck.

dear Patty,

Not it does not discourage me!! I really like the citrus plants, because of their ever green leaves...but some fruits would be oke....

Isn't so that the citrus will grow faster after pruning it?

The tree will not grow faster if pruned. If you only have a few branches on it, you could pinch the tips off & get more branches.

Flapmiester, do not prune your citrus trees if you ever expect the trees to produce fruit. A citrus tree matures and begins producing fruit only after the tree has grown the required number of nodes (for nodes, you can think in terms leaves). When you prune your trees, you are cutting nodes from the tree, therefore, the tree will never be able to develop the required number, and therefore will never fruit. Of the trees you are growing, the mandarins and lemon will be first to fruit. The orange could take 15 years. A grapefruit grown as a container tree, will NEVER fruit, because the node count for grapefruit is extremely high, and will never be reached as a containerized tree. However, you could build a greenhouse and plant the grapefruit in the ground. - Millet

If you prune it, it will have more branches, more leaves, more nodes, shorter wait. Wrong headed?

I learned something new today.
Good analogy, Joe. Thank you.

Scott, you're welcome. But that is a very general rule, which means that some citrus cultivars will buck the trend and do their own thing anyways...

well, then i have alway pruned for nothing
But I will stop doing that...Sometimes the citrus trees look if they are out of control...They grow so fast and the tree is no longer in proportion.So that's why i have pruned them. I will stop doing that!

Thanks you all!

flapmeister,

You can still do that, but what I would do is alternate prune some branches after they start to bloom. Do the alternate pruning every to couple of years.

Another way to control the size of your tree and have them bear fruit even earlier, is to do a bark inversion operation on the main trunk if you don't have any disease pressure like gummosis. Bark inversion fools the tree into thinking that it has more than enough nodes to start blooming after the cambium heals. It limits the flow of food into the roots but not totally cut off the food supply, so the roots stay small. And if the roots stay small, the tree would tend to maintain its size, concentrating its food into blooming and producing bigger fruits.

But if you are doing a lot of multiple grafting each year, bark inversion is not recommended as it slows down the sprouting of buds. When you think you have enough cultivars on one tree, then you can do the bark inversion.

I have discussed bark inversion in this forum a long time ago, and you can search for how it is done. But I would only recommend this procedure to very confident and well-experienced grafters, otherwise, you could lose the entire tree if done improperly.

Joe

I will do nothing then to avoid of risk killing my trees....I am patient...The will come, and if so; i will post a pic!

thanks you all

During the tree's first years, there is no need to cut at all, since research has shown that any cut to a young tree reduces root growth. This is due to the equilibrium between foliage and the root system. The tree is a biological unit. Cuts on a young tree discourages canopy growth and delays the tree from coming into bearing. Even on MATURE fruit bearing trees grown in tight planted commercial citrus groves, hedging and topped trees need 2 years (or more) to return to normal production. Most citrus trees tend to grow to a pleasing dome shape is left alone. Mother nature does a much better job of shaping citrus trees than the pruner. Just the fact that your trees are growing in a container will greatly restrict the tree's size. Our company was recently in the Netherlands to attend the 2006 International Horti Fair that was held in Amsterdam. Nice country and nice people. - Millet

People have been known to have a variety of Citrus grown
indoors in their homes and not care if they ever did set fruit.
Many of them were pleased just to have a nice looking,
evergreen tree that would emit a pleasing scent all on its
own while not in bloom. I've seen a few people living in
the Los Angeles basin when I was much younger that had
their Citrus growing in their homes located in spots that
had lots of natural light, away from heat ducts, usually near
large sliding glass windows.

A lot depends on what you want from your trees. If you
want your Citrus to have a certain size and shape for you
now, then pinching back overly vigorous growth to shape
the tree is acceptable. There is a price to pay for pruning
seedlings when young in that they can take much longer to
flower for you than they would otherwise but if that is not
an issue then by all means go ahead and shape the trees
to your liking.

I was hoping Esveld may have had some Citrus in their
inventory. If they do have any they are not listed in their
"stock list".

Below is a link that may interest you.

CITRUS AND ORANGERIES

http://sciweb.nybg.org/science2/Onlinexhibits/citrus.htm

Jim

Jim, excellent posting. I enjoyed the Lu Esther Mertz Library link, very fascinating indeed. Your thread also showed how we as human beings can get trapped into tunnel vision. My citrus tunnel was only seeing the value of the production of fruit from our citrus trees. You are certainly correct, and you are certainly appreciated for returning me back to the proper view that citrus can offer us much more pleasure than just producing fruit. Nice thread. - Millet