I have a rather old kaffir lime that was grown from seed. It is 15+ years old. I would like to topwork this tree into something more better tasting for fruits, possibly pummelos and navel orange. Is there anything I should be aware of? Would it produce inferior fruits or impart unusual flavors? Thanks.

Pumelo may outgrow the lime rootstock. Pumelo & grapefruit are very vigorous varieties. Not sure what the outcome would be, but I have never seen anyone use kaffir lime as a rootstock. Better off with sour orange or Trifoliata.

looks like not much info out there on Kaffir lime as rootstock. I'll give it a shot and see how it goes. thanks.

Kaffir Lime is my least cold hardy cultivar, so I can't use it as a rootstock. It would impart the cold sensitivity to whatever is grafted unto it. Unless if you're in zone 10 and above, then that could be used as a rootstock. But actually testing it is different than just speculating. So I look forward to sharing your experience about the performance of the grafted cultivars.

Joe can help you when you want to bark graft
the tree but he will need to see a photo of the
entire tree to give you an idea where to place
the scions and where not to.

If the tree were mine that I grew here, I'd take
some cuttings and root them and then bud or
graft onto them. Our Kaffir Limes that we
have in containers do show cold sensitivity
but they bounced back beautifully even after
all the leaves on my plant dropped off last
year, so the root system was apparently not
severely damaged to have the tree leaf out
so soon afterwards and end up being the
about the same for leaf numbers that I had
the previous year. As a matter of fact, the
misses tree sent out more vigorous growth
this year than it did last year after shucking
all of its leaves as well during the cold snap
we had back in January.

The old Kaffir Lime that came in on its
own roots with especially bitter tasting
fruit was thought by some people to be
more cold tolerant than the Tahiti, Key
and Mexican Limes were. One of my
aunts trees (about 15 years old on its
own roots) did not skip much of a beat
in the ground grown near Visalia (Tulare
County) with seemingly negligible leaf
loss in comparison to our much younger
trees during the cold snap we had.

I would prefer to stick with using either
Lime, Limetta or Lemon for the Kaffir
Lime parent rootstock, if that is what
you fully have intentions of doing.

Jim

The taste of the Kaffir lime stock won't affect the fruit taste of thee grafted or buddied varieties.
Sweet oranges on Sour oranges are the sweetest and best fruit one can harvest, so the sour and bitter taste of the sour orange does not affect the taste of the sweet orange scion...
Kaffir Lime as rootstock is a challanging game, because very intolerant to cold and foot root, very prone to canker and not much vigorous....
Not realy promising for a good rootstock...