Living in an area where the growing season is short, I was wondering if anyone knew what the most vigorous citrus is? Thanks!

My vote is key lime. Mine grew like crazy in the 2 years I have had it, no fruit the first year but, probably 100 fruit in the second year! you can harvest the fruit green making it a quick bearer too.

Grapefruit.

one of the most vigorous citrus is certainly the pummelo (citrus maxima) along with the grapefruit. as for the most vigorous rootstock, i'd go for volkameriana (volkamer lemon)...

igor

I think it's interesting that we have to keep in mind the conditions under which we'll be growing them, and that our concept of "vigor" may differ. Key lime and pummelo have specifically been mentioned here, undoubtedly from container-growers, and for them, that may be a valid observation. Yet out in the orchard (or lawn) in a warm climate, those are two of the very least vigorous of all citrus -- both are somewhat dwarfed, regardless of rootstock used!

For great vigor of any scion variety, I'd recommend C. macrophylla, C. volkameriana, and/or rough lemon, as rootstocks that promote extreme vigor in their scions. As for scion types, I'd agree with any true lemon (not 'Meyer'), and then grapefruit second.

thank you for breaking this down for us! you are a living book of citrus related knowledge.
as for the conditions, considering craig's location (zone 5), i assumed he's looking for the most vigorous container grown citrus.

igor

The problem with macrophylla, C. volkameriana, and/or rough lemon, is that for the vast majority of people they are not desirous varieties to grow, if one wants a tree that produces fruit with good taste. - Therefore, it might be more useful to the majority of hobby growers, for vigorous varieties that result in fruit that has a taste worth growing. Of course, one answer might be to purchase a grafted tree that is already productive, and forget about any wait. - Millet (454-)

As long as the tree flowers and has fruit, I'm fine with it. I enjoy the look of citrus as much as the taste. So less palatable varieties are fine.

I actually purchased some rough lemon seeds yesterday, and just saw some volkamer seeds for sale for the first time as well. So are the rough lemon/volkamer vigorous in their own right, or only the scion if grafted onto them? Thank you all for the replies.

Craig, I'm not all that sure about macrophylla, C. volkameriana, as I just would never bother with either of them, but rough lemon used as a root stock produces a very vigorous growth of the scion grafted upon it. The down side is that the fruit of the scion variety growing upon rough lemon is normally of a poor quality, but if you don't care about ever eating the fruit, it will give you a faster growing tree. - Millet (454-)

Right -- if the goal is vigor, then high fruit quality will not be likely to happen as well. Still, quality is also a relative term -- for many years nearly all of the Florida crop was grown on Rough Lemon roots, and we produced some very fine OJ and tangerines on it. 'Dancy' tangerine (the only "real" tangerine to those of us who grew up in the 50s and 60s eating them) was virtually always grown on RL roots, and the effect was a bigger, nicer fruit. But no question that many other rootstocks will give higher sugar content, more acid, and higher peel and juice color than will the very vigorous stocks.