I visited http://saxonbecnelandsons.com/ today and bought 30 trees. This is the end of the selling season and I'm out of rio grapefruit, navel oranges, and meyer lemon. They are growing 500,000 citrus trees in Orange, TX near the Louisiana border and just this year have started to sell trees. All their trees are 5 gallon and larger than other trees I have seen for sale in local nurseries.

They use Carrizo on all the trees. I mentioned that common knowledge around SE Texas is that trifoliate is the best rootstock for this area. His reply was "according to who?" and he proceeded to tell me why he thought carrizo was best. Much faster growing and makes bigger fruit=> bigger tree more cold hardy.

Hmm, I'm not convinced. Carrizo has hybrid vigor for sure and makes a large tree fast but I can't believe it is as cold hardy as trifoliate. I don't think it's best for cold hardy to have a vigorous rootstock.

I got to thinking why they prefer Carrizo. Big trees sell for more money and their customers the retail nurseries like Home Depot and don't ask/know about the rootstock.

I've found that another big grower outside of Houston http://brazoscitrusnursery.com/ with 40,000 trees is not using trifoliate exclusively either.

However as far as I know http://www.treesearchfarms.com/citrus.html and a local place Doremus wholesale nursery are growing with trifoliate rootsock/flying dragon.

I haven't seen trees for sale at local nurseries on trifoliate myself as the trees usually are on sour orange and sourced from the Texas Valley.

In my own experience not 1 person in 100 asks about the rootstock in my backyard nursery. Hmm, better for the grower but not as cold hardy for the retail buyer!!!

yes i spoke to an individual that sells a major amount of his supply to austin and to houston , and ill is grafted on sour ornage or c22 which is great for the valley but no good for your area.He was very ignorant on telling me sour orange was great for your area and i told him why , he had no good answer to give me. They should tag what the rootstock is onthe tags produced so the ocnsumer is aware and does there research

A answer like ""according to who?" sounds like something a Becnel nursery would say. Citrus Joe and I have purchased trees from Tree Search Nursery of Houston, Texas. We bought a couple BC-2 citrus trees from them. They have nice trees. - Millet (1,000-)

Thank you for the excellent and informative post mrtexas

I have a little collection of citrus trees from all the nurseries you mentioned and was trying to figure out what rootstock the becnel trees were on. Yes, they are bigger and more vigorous then the others.

Anyone had any experience with Creekside Nursery?

Most citrus trees are used in yards in SE Texas. Flying Dragon makes an ideal tree for yards. Trees that were 15 feet or larger in height suffered damage from the hurricanes in the past. Satsuma on FD understock survived nicely.
Carrizo and Troyer are the same and along with Swingle are very vigorous growers making large trees.

Creeksude nursery, Hempstead TX uses Trifoliata and Flying Dragon root stock on their citrus.

Buddinman, I agree with you 100%. Saxon and Becnel is flooding the market with 500,000 of the wrong rootstock for our area.

Texas Argicultural Extension service pamplet GC211, states "Sour orange is preferred for South Texas, whereas trifoliata orange is more cold hardy and is preferred for the upper Gulf Coast, although it should not be used in calcareous soils.
LSU, Home Citrus Production page 3. "In the last several years, several nurseries havee been grafting citrus trees on a dwarf rootstock known as Flying Dragon Trifoliata. Dwarf trees are ideal for home-owners with limited space. Good crops of oranges and satsumas can be made in a circle only 10 feet in diameter. Ask your local garden centers and nurseries to obtain trees budded on the dwarf Flying Dragon trifoliata rootstocks."

Very interesting and timely post.


During the Jan. freeze I had only one tree with major damage out of 31 total in my backyard in Angleton, Tx, 40 mi s. of Houston. That tree is a Page on citrange and it was the only tree I have on citrange. I bought it from Teas Nursery in Houston and they said it came from Greenleaf Nursery (a large Vietnamese operated nursery S. of El Campo, Tx). Teas had to call Greenleaf to find out what the rootstock was. During the freeze my cover split and the Page was exposed to 19 - 23 deg F for maybe 4-6 hrs. The trunk has a dead strip about 1-1/2 in wide from below the bud union all the way up. The dead strip widens as it goes up and affects about 30% of the tree.

I have two other page trees on std trifoliate, both grown by John Panzarella. One was supposed to be a Lee and he claims the Weslaco Budwood people messed up. This tree on citrange consistantly produced
much better fruit than either of the trees on std T.F. , richer, sweeter, & jucier! It was so much better that I wanted another Page on citrange but could not find out where to get one.

I checked with local Vietnamese, who operate two locations in Houston and as I suspected Greenleaf no longer grow citrus. So I got
a Page from them on sour orange from Rio Grande Valley, and planted it in my last open spot three weeks ago.

All this time I had on hand a Saxon Becnal and Son grown Page sitting in a pot. I am waiting for my son to get a water well at his new house he is having built so we will put in his citrus grove. I thought Becnals grew trees on T.F.

Mr. Texas, I am surprised Shackelford is selling trees that are not on trifoliate. I knew some are on flying dragon but he specifically started gorwing citrus because he had a huge number of wild trifoliate on a family property. What are they on?