hi everyone,

1-does pruning help my seedlings have a wide rootstock to graft?
because they are growing tall but not wide.

2- what is the best procedure done to achieve the perfect and the fastest rootstock to graft?[/b]

Pruning will not be helpful; do it only if the plant is too tall for the situation you have it in. The base will thicken as the plant develops more growth on top. Grow the seedlings as bright and as warm as possible. Commercial Florida nurserymen grow them close together (4 -6 inches) in tall, narrow pots, in nearly full-sun conditions. They like to maintain a greenhouse temperature of around 100 F (38 C). Under those conditions, one can go from seed to pencil-thick stock ready to bud in 9 months. Of course cooler temperatures are ok; it will just take somewhat longer to reach buddable size.

thanx Malcolm for the reply i'll try that.
i always thought if i plant them in a larger pot i'll get faster growth.

but if i see the roots come out from the drainage at the bottom of the pot doesn't that meen that it needs a bigger pot?

I do not remove any of the leaves or side growth that develops on the bottom of the trunk. According to Dr. Carl E. Whitcomb's research this bottom growth supplies energy to the trunk. I remove it only when the stem is ready to be grafted. Otherwise I grow all of my seedlings (mostly Flying Dragon) in full sun and at a fertilizer rate of 300 PPM. Lastly, In my opinion TreeSource's grafted liners are among the worst that I have ever purchased. - Millet

..................Joe Real wrote--"I ordered about 80 grafted citrus liner for the CRFG members and have distributed them. For the price that you pay, they are more than worth their money. Depends mostly also on how you handled them. A few of the liners are bad looking, but nothing that a good potting media and container growing cannot fix. For a price of just about $5.50, they are a real bargain, and the shipping for them costs just another $0.15 each, so each one is $5.65 plus royalties if varieties are patented........................

Joe my good friend, I and Citrus Joe ordered some Tree Source's liners during their annual season tree sale. We also paid $5.50 per tree. To tell you my honest feelings, I would not be interested in their product again if offered postage paid and free. The liner's root system is tightly root bound, because of the type of liner they use, which forces the root structure to grow in a packed mass straight down. A "root grows as a bullet goes", in plain words, a root will always continue to grow in the same direction until it hits a restriction, only then will it change directions. Planting a root bound liner into a larger container is not the answer. When a root system is in the condition they are, caused by those 1 inch wide liners, the tree will always have problems after transplanting, and will never ever ketch up with a tree that has a properly grown root system. A high percentage of their bud grafts are not trained vertically, therefore are growing at all sorts of angles, a few even at 90 degrees to the stem, Due to all their problems they are not worth the time and effort to try to grow. The looks of a young tree does not tell the condition, nor the life span, nor the production, nor the potential growth restrictions that will be the tree's future. A tree's begining root system is 90 percent of the tree's future. When we are talking the price paid for a high quality liner against a poorly grown, or over grown liner, $10.00 or $20.00 extra is a very cheap price to pay. Anyway, that is my opinion, and every one is entitled to their own. That is why they offer Fords and Chevrolets for sale. - Millet

Millet my good friend, I would not have insisted posting about TreeSource if it were not for the unexpectedly good performance of the citrus liners that I got from them. It could be that my technique of growing them is suited for the liners that they provide. The moment I plant them either in containers or in the ground, they almost literally pop up like springs in terms of growth for the amount of time compared to other planting materials that I get from Home Depot, Four winds, C&M, Willits and Newcomb. If I didn't have these actual great experiences with their materials, and it would have been otherwise, believe me that they will be "massacred" by my negative comments.

Also the angle of the buds, I found that trivial to have any significant effect on the growth of inground citruses. Through time, I wouldn't tell the differences, they all have straightened out and very difficult to determine the budded line after about 5 years. The trunk would be big and straight, and the traces disappeared and so there is really no difference at all. The growing climate and the conditions they were planted in the ground is a bigger factor in growth rate.

Perhaps compared to container growing where the tree size is significantly smaller, the effects are magnified so you would see these differences. In effect I don't really disagree at all with what you observe, but trying to reconcile differences in our actual observations and experiences. For my observed example, I bought several "ultradwarf" calamondins. Those that were planted in the ground grew to more than 20 ft high, while those that I kept in the pots remained at 3 ft high, so you would really see the magnified effect, and as observed, the one inground, has a straight trunk with no visual clues to the unaided eye as to where the budline is, but to the potted plants, you can really see the angle of the bud, the strong demarkation where they are budded, the non-straight trunk. Both types of plants are productive though. That is how I try to advance my knowledge and learn more and have been recommending your observations and practices when someone asks advices on container growing.

One last comment. When a root becomes deformed such as developing a J-root, looped root, kinked root, or a constricted/root bound/mass such as roots left in liners or containers to long, the roots will forever remain deformed in those conditions. The root system below the restriction might branch out, but the water, nutrition and energy will always be forced to pass through the restriction . This shortens the life and the productivity of the tree. It is much, much, much better to start with a young tree that has a strong well balanced root system. It is important that root branching begins approximately at the first 4th inch mark of a root's growth. A tree's first year of growth is the most important year in a tree's life. - Millet

Agree with Millet there.

Just something to ponder about is to explain those very long lived trees that have deformed roots, deformed stems, living in the ledges or cliffs, and carbon dating them to be up to thousand years old, and thus many people have used them for Bonsai.

There are also many types of long lived citruses used for bonsai hobby, citruses so much contorted in their shapes of roots and trunk that are also long-lived. But of course, the objectives are different, the main purpose is for display rather than fruit production...

We will always find unusual things and exceptions, one cannot generalize easily.

Joe, when your talking about a tree that lives for thousands of years on rocky ledges and with contorted structure, you must be talking about the Bristle Cone Pine. The oldest known Bristle Cone is a tree named Methuselah, and is growing just inside the California state border from Death Valley National Park, Nevada, three or four miles west of the World War-11 Japanese detention camp site. Methuselah is now over 2000 years old, and was a mature tree when Jesus was walking upon the earth. One of the reasons for Bristle Cone's great age is due of the tree's given nature. When one studies information concerning Bristle Cone pines, one will find that when the tree is cultivated by man and is given the best of care, planted in the best of soil, the tree only survives 300 years maximum. Only the Bristle Cones living the "hard" life ever attain great age. I am presently growing 8 Bristle Cones here on the farm. Trees that start out with good root systems live longer, produce better and have fewer problems than trees that start life with a deformed or weak root system. It is better to discard such trees and plant the tree of quality. As far as I know, the oldest living citrus tree that is still alive is the seedling Sour Orange tree planted by Saint Dominic in the year 1200 AD at the Catholic convent of Saint Sybil in Rome, Italy. Saint Dominic planted that tree from a seed, therefore that tree's root structure grew without hindrance, into a large well formed highly branched root system. The tree is now currently over 800 years old. It is true, as in all facets of life, there are the exceptions, but it is the exceptions that prove the rule. Anyway, it has been an interesting discussion. Thank you. - Millet

One of the secrets to long life in living things is slow growth and is contrary to productivity that we wanted from plants. Balance the supply and demand and make everything slow, the secret of most bonsai hobbyist. One of the ways to achieve balance in slowing down growth is to restrict the growth of roots, prune them, and train them when you are trimming the size of the above ground parts, thus attain slow growth, slower metabolism and longer life span of plants. The challenge is that it is very difficult to train citrus roots based on my experience.

Getting off-topic here, but this can be applied to daily living, not only with citruses. When it comes to animals and humans, eating less and expending less energy will have the longest life as opposed to the extremes. Less food and less exercise (warning, not zero exercise) is the best balance for longer life as well. These are explained by oxidative phosphorylation which have been one of the major processes causing aging. The more the cell produces energy, the shorter its life span. So if we exercise ourselves to exhaustion, it will shorten or life span. But a simple regular exercise can significantly increase health and life span.