Hello!

Ok, Here comes another dumb novice question.

Almost two years ago, I stock several seeds from neighbor's satsuma (at least, he thinks it is satsuma) in a pot with my wife's indoor palm tree. To my surprise, they all started to grow and I transplanted them into small pots and then to the ground in the fall. Seedlings were put outside the fence (on its north side) where they left alone with no protection for the whole winter. During that winter, there were couple nights when temperature dropped to -8.9 C (16 F), which killed my satsuma all the way down to its trifoliate roots... Grapefruit, kumquat, and lemon seedlings around them were killed.

My satsuma seedlings were all just fine! One or two lost couple leaves and that was all the damage they got. I put them in pots again last spring (yeah, another year - different plans) and there they are since. Besides an awful spider mites infestation in October, they are green and happy. Recently, we had couple of freezes that got all my other citrus trees and the other night their leaves were all covered by frost without any damage!

So, most likely, after all I learned on this forum, I will just bring them to a neighborly woods and stick them in the ground there... BUT! I am just curious: since these seedlings seem to be quite hardy, if I graft on them, will the resulting plants be comparable (hardiness-wise) with ones on the trifoliate rootstock?

I apologize if my question makes little or no sense to the experts... I am just curious to learn new things.

Thank you!

Why graft them? Satsuma grows true from seed.

I use satsuma as well as yuzu for rootstock but mostly flying dragon and trifolaite.

I have several satsumas that are grafted to satsuma seedlings. I made these grafts years ago with the idea that, by using mature wood on the seedlings, I would get fruit earlier. The trees are doing well after 12 or more years in the ground.

I have come to believe that, as Mr. Texas says, satsuma will do just fine as a seedling. I have have satsuma trees in pots fruit in as little as 4 years. That is about what you would expect from a grafted tree when you consider that you should remove all fruit the first couple of years anyway.

Of course, there are other considerations in choosing rootstock. If you want a dwarf tree you are pretty much limited to Flying Dragon.

So what are the cons on growing Satsuma on its own roots?

MrTexas,

thank you very much for your reply! The reasons I am thinking about grafting are:
1) I was not very impressed by the fruit I took those seeds from (I even doubt it is satsuma since there were 10+ seeds per fruit);
2) I would like to have something else too. Like your awesome golden grapefruit, for example, or Xie Shan;
3) I do not have other rootstock but these 4 plants are right there.

Ned,

thank you very much! It is great to know that plants are doing fine in ground in your climate. Guess, I will give a shot. I am not really considering dwarf trees at this point. The idea is to plant them next to the fence (outside the yard) to have both nicely looking fence decorated with vegetation, extra protection from north winds, and fruits!! We have a drainage pond outside the fence, so no one would mind my little "invasion"; besides, the backyard is extremely tiny and already accommodates 9 trees, 5 rose bushes, 3 grape vines, vegies, etc.

Darkman,

the con I thought about was its possibly reduced hardiness. Since it might be not a very serious issue, I will try. Thank you!!!

I would not bother grafting a Satsuma onto another root stock, they do well on their own roots. . If it was grafted onto a Rough Lemon stock the Satsuma might grow faster, but the fruit's taste should be quite diminished. On a similar subject, I have a Clementine seedling (does not come true) that I planted in January 2008, and its first fruit is presently just starting to turn yellow. Fruited last May, in just 2 years 4 months from planting the seed. From appearances the fruit looks like a somewhat flattened Clementine. The tree was grown in a greenhouse that is kept warm year around, this cut the maturity time approximately in half. - Millet (772-)

Millet,

thank you very much! This sounds encouraging! I may leave one seedling as it is just to see what will happen.

Citrus on their own roots seem to me to be hardier. Additionally, if they do freeze, anything that recovers will be true to type, not rootstock.

Satsumas almost always taste rather insipid as young trees. The taste improves dramatically as the tree ages. This has been the case with all of mine.

Ned,

thank you! The fruit I was referring to (the one I got seeds from) came from a mature tree and we still did not like it. I just got couple more, so we will taste them again to see whether they are better now than they were two years ago.

I would think that the main cons of growing on own roots rather than trifoliate would be losing the benefit of trifoliate's resistance to root rot and immunity from the Tristeza virus.

John, the foot rot comment is certainly true. However, seedling trees never suffer from tristeza virus (except Key lime, or if you have one of the really severe stem-pitting strains of the virus, not currently in the USA). And even among grafted plants, the scion/rootstock combinations that are susceptible are limited -- mostly things on sour orange (or one of its derivatives like bittersweet or smooth flat seville) or C. macrophylla, or grapefruit used as a rootstock or interstock. Nearly everything else is tolerant

John, Dr. Manners, Darkman,

thank you very much for your clarifications! It is good to know that CTV will not be an issue.

Hi!

just thought of reporting an update for my rootstock experiments...

First of all, I think I should stop calling them "satsumas" as my neighbor does - fruits are very seedy. So, they are some unknown mandarins...

I grafted few satsumas and grapefruits on these mandarin seedlings last spring. Grafts took well (those i did not screw up) and were growing very vigorously over the summer as compared to "controls" on sour orange roots. So, the next test will be to see how the plants will survive the winter. Whatever overwinters, will go in ground next spring.

Thanks again for all your inputs!