Citrus Growers Forum

harriest · Citruholic Joined: 17 Jan 2010 Posts: 38 Location: Estonia

Malcolm_Manners wrote:

FD produces a high percentage of non-true-to-type seedlings. ... you could predict performance by how curled the thorns were -- the straighter they were, the less dwarfing, and the more curly, the more dwarfing; and that only the very curly ones should be considered true FD.

Interesting! I did not expect that... I ordered 50 seeds of FD some days ago and so I do know now that I have to pay attention to the seedlings thorns. By the way, how long would it take before the seedlings will be ready for grafting?

JoeReal · Posted: Fri 22 Jan, 2010 12:54 pm

harriest wrote:

Malcolm_Manners wrote:

FD produces a high percentage of non-true-to-type seedlings. ... you could predict performance by how curled the thorns were -- the straighter they were, the less dwarfing, and the more curly, the more dwarfing; and that only the very curly ones should be considered true FD.

Interesting! I did not expect that... I ordered 50 seeds of FD some days ago and so I do know now that I have to pay attention to the seedlings shorns. By the way, how long would it take before the seedlings will be ready for grafting?

I have four year old FD that are slightly straight and not ready for grafting. I also had 2 year old FD that have gnarlier stems but have been grafted to already. It is therefore a generalized rule and may at best just 75% correlated. On the average it takes about 3 years before I can comfortably graft to the batch of FD seeds that I got 4 years ago.

jrb · Posted: Fri 22 Jan, 2010 4:13 pm

Here is a publication that shows the different types of seedlings that can come from flying dragon seeds.

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/HS/HS22100.pdf

I have seen a paper that connected these seedling types to genetic traits of FD itself. I think it was from Japan but I can't find it now.

_________________
Jim

Malcolm_Manners · Posted: Fri 22 Jan, 2010 5:30 pm

A quote from the paper jrb cited: "The genetics of trifoliate orange rootstocks are
complex and may explain differences in the size of
trees grafted onto these rootstocks, especially Flying
Dragon. Citrus and related species are unique
because of the frequent occurrence of polyembryony
(one seed producing a number of embryos or
seedlings) and nucellar embryony (seedlings
genetically identical to the mother plant as opposed to
zygotic seedlings which inherit genetic characteristics
from both parent plants). Rootstocks that are strongly
nucellar produce a high percentage of nucellar
seedlings whereas weakly nucellar rootstocks can
produce a significant percentage of both nucellar and
zygotic seedlings. In one report, using seed from
Dwarfing and Freeze Hardiness Potential of Trifoliate Orange Rootstocks 4
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 same tree."

So it looks as though those not-true-to-type seedlings in FD may be zygotic after all; not mutant nucellars as I had thought.

harriest · Citruholic Joined: 17 Jan 2010 Posts: 38 Location: Estonia

Thanks, jrb, for sharing this interesting paper!
Harri.

JoeReal · Posted: Fri 22 Jan, 2010 6:33 pm

Malcolm_Manners wrote:

So it looks as though those not-true-to-type seedlings in FD may be zygotic after all; not mutant nucellars as I had thought.

And that is precisely why we have seedling to seedling genetic and phenotypic variations in FD seeds. The seedlings would be very unreliable as rootstocks to achieve uniformity in tree height. I have found it myself from the seed samples I had 4 years ago.

citrusgalore · Posted: Sat 23 Jan, 2010 11:51 pm

This photo is of a calamondin cleft grafted onto a FD.
The FD is a seedling started on 11-20-08. The calamondin
was grafted onto it on 11-11-09. It is exhibiting very nice
growth at this time. I am very comfortable grafting
onto young seedling stock. It is commonly done
with Japanese maples, which I am familiar with,
and I didn't think for a minute about it being a problem
with the seedling FD. I guess it is all in the perspective
of the would-be grafter.

http://img191.imageshack.us/content_round.php?page=done&l=img191/172/calamondingraftgrowing.jpg&via=mupload

_________________
A small piece of land with fruit trees and a garden allows one to live as kings and queens in times of trouble.

Skeeter · Posted: Sun 24 Jan, 2010 11:46 am

I have 2 citrus trees that are suppose to be on FD rootstock( Minneola Tangelo and Moro Blood Orange). They were bought from Brite Leaf --I believe it was 3 yrs ago. I grafted the Tangelo with the budwood I got from DPI (Ambersweet and Mandarin) --(the last yr they provided budwood to homeowners). Both are already over 6 ft, the Moro Blood Orange is pushing 8 ft.

Our soil here is sandy and acidic.

_________________
Skeet

morphinelover · Posted: Sun 24 Jan, 2010 12:01 pm

Skeeter wrote:

I have 2 citrus trees that are suppose to be on FD rootstock( Minneola Tangelo and Moro Blood Orange). They were bought from Brite Leaf --I believe it was 3 yrs ago. I grafted the Tangelo with the budwood I got from DPI (Ambersweet and Mandarin) --(the last yr they provided budwood to homeowners). Both are already over 6 ft, the Moro Blood Orange is pushing 8 ft.

Our soil here is sandy and acidic.

Yea, I was reading the document on flying dragon that jrb profided us and it was saying that lemons grafted on flying dragon were 12 years old and 11.5' tall. It also said that flying dragon didn't restrict the growth of vigorious lemon varieties.

David. · Posted: Wed 28 Apr, 2010 8:09 pm

I learn something everyday from you guys.
thx

_________________
South Texas gardener

buddinman · Posted: Thu 27 May, 2010 2:34 am

In my back yard I have 3 satsuma trees on Flying Dragon understock that was gave to me in the spring of 1985. They were banked for the severe 1989 freeze and survived. Thesese trees were moved from Nederland TX to Lumberton TX in October 1993. At the present 2 are remaining that are about 8 ft in height. The other one, Armstrong Early was replaced this year with a Miyagawa grafted on to Flying understock.