i planted some Flying Dragon seeds and the plants have not grown very tall this summer. i have recently separated them. i think i left them in the same crowded pot too long. i am hoping they well grow a little faster now that they have more room but was just wanting to know what the growth rate to expect.

inch/year?

Not exactly what your asking but hopefully some good information for you or others reading this post.

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/hs221

I grow my FD seedlings out one year in a mass pot and then in separate pots for another year to pencil caliper. Commercial nurseries can get them to grow to budding size in one year.

Mr. Texas,
How does your FD seedlings look. Do they all have the characteristic Dragon look to the stems or do some or most of them grow straight. If you do have variances, which ones do you use and which ones do you cull?

FD is notorious for making lots of variant seedlings. I heard a good paper on the subject at the International Society for Citriculture's conference in Orlando, years ago, at which the guy recommended using only the zigzagged stem, curved-thorns types, and discarding the rest, if you wanted the typical dwarfing that FD gives.

I use them all. Almost 99% of mine grow pretty straight in a curvy kind of way, very uniform. A very few are obviously crosses with more grotesque and longer curves very similar to Bonnie Childer's hybrid FD (I used to have a tree of it until I tasted the fruit, topworked it and it all promptly died after a hurricane knocked off the new branch!). The original bud for my FD mother tree came from Bonnie. However, I planted at the same time a clementine, a Fairchild mandarin, and a Page mandarin all on FD. The clementine and Fairchild are dwarf after 6 or 7 years at 6-8 feet tall but the page is 3x as big. The page rootstock must be on a cross.

Malcolm,

I read, probably from an IFAS publication, that as you said the seedlings with "dragon" looking stems will produce a truly dwarf tree and the others should be discarded as it is not certain what they will deliver.

Mr. Texas,

It seems that your experience has been good without only using the "dragon" looking stems. It is hard to argue with experience. Since I am in Florida I guess I won't be getting any Citrus grafting experience and I'm interested in the subject so that I can vet the growers I buy from. Thanks for your comments.

Some of the off type flying dragons can be very attractive specimens. Also it is possible to get some very vigorous zig zag types. Probably the dwarfing and zig zag traits are usually closely genetically linked, but it seems not strictly in every case. Also some super stunted types can occur. It's probably best to grow excess seedlings and use those that seem in the middle of the range if you really want uniform dwarf types.
Are members using any type of extra heating or protection to speed up the FD growth rate ?

pagnr, I'm not sure any sort of genetic linkage is being suggested; rather, since FD as a cultivar always has zigzag stems and strongly curved thorns, it's an easy way (without a DNA test) of selecting predominantly true, clonal FD seedlings, while discarding those which are obviously and definitely genetically different. Of course you're still not guaranteed that 100% of those seedlings are FD -- some could be morphologically similar but genetically different; what you CAN guarantee, though, is that the straight-stemmed, straight-thorn seedlings are NOT FD, and there's the goal in the rogueing.

The genetics of trifoliate orange rootstocks are complex and may explain differences in size of trees grafted onto these rootstocks, especially Flying Dragon. In a IFAS report it was stated that using seed from Flying Dragon trees grown in four different locations, the frequency of zygotic seedlings ranged from 0 to 75%. Researchers also found that the percentage of Flying Dragon nucellar and zygotic seedlings fluctuated greatly from year to year on the very same tree. Seed from the same source can show variability in stem height, straightness of stems and straightness of thorns. Thus variability in eventual tree height. - Millet (863-)

The off types I've seen than thorns at least 3x as long and more curved and trunks 3x as curvy. I see a very few of these in every batch of seedlings.

We've had FD trees (apparently true-to-type, acquired from the State arboretum) for many years. When we grow seed from them, we always get a significant percentage (but less than half) of off-types, which we've discarded. We no longer grow any seeds, since our greenhouses are not psyllid certified. But we've grown huge numbers of them over the years.

Thanks Dr Manners. As I understand it, by selecting trees with zig zag stems and curved thorns you are using a visual trait to select for the dwarfing character. Dwarfing and zig zag may not in fact be genetically related or causal at all, but the high rate of both occurring at the same time in the Flying Dragon strain seems to suggest they are genetically linked( ie inherited together). Otherwise you would expect to see far more dwarf/straight, tall/straight and tall/zig zag types in the seedlings. In my experience you get good numbers of workable FD dwarf zig zag seedlings, but not so many of the other 3 types. You do get a lot of super runts and unique off types. Hope you can comment further.