Which type of rootstock would be best for growing a tangerine in South West Florida (Bradenton)? I've heard bitter orange is good, and seeds aren't expensive on ebay, but are there any I can buy the fruits in a grocery store and use the seeds to grow the roots? Planted the seeds of ruby red grapefruit to do grafting onto, but are their roots good?

Probably the best for SW FL is Swingle or if you want a dwarfing rootstock, Flying dragon.

Grapefruit do well on there own roots, but I'm not sure of the quality of fruit using it as a rootstock. Dr. Manners would be the one to know for growing in your area.

Swingle, ok, now I just have to find some swingle seeds to grow it. Any idea where to get them? I checked ebay, and didn't find any.

Since grapefruit do well on their own roots, would it be worthwhile to attempt a tangerine graft onto the grapefruit? Thanks,
Keith

Zeeth,
First off, because of greening and canker diseases, unless you are a licensed citrus nurseryman (with the positive-pressure, sealed, psyllid-proof greenhouses), it is illegal to propagate your own citrus in Florida -- even one tree for your own use. So no one will sell you seeds legally. But grafted trees are readily available at retail, and that would save you a couple years anyway.

'Bittersweet' is a form of sour orange (C. aurantium), and is susceptible to tristeza virus, which is rampant in Manatee County. I would not recommend it.

Grapefruit as a rootstock is also horrendously susceptible to tristeza virus, and if tristeza doesn't kill the tree, fruit produced on the scion will be big, watery, and diluted-tasting. Again, not recommended.

Swingle is excellent, if your soil is somewhat acid. It's currently by far the most popular stock used in Florida.

Cleopatra or Sun Chu Sha are both good, as well, under a mandarin scion.

Rough lemon would be ok, and will tend to cause 'Dancy' tangerine to make bigger fruit than on other stocks (a good thing), but the tree would be more susceptible than average to citrus blight disease. Still perhaps not a bad choice.

If you buy a tree, it's likely going to be on Swingle, unless you buy a 'Murcott', which would likely be budded to something else, due to long-term graft incompatibility with Swingle.

Malcolm M. Manners
John and Ruth Tyndall Professor of Citrus Science
Florida Southern College
Lakeland

It's illegal to propagate your own citrus?! I had no idea... That's quite odd, I could see if it was illegal to propagate to sell, but for your own use? That's just weird...Is it illegal to buy an already grafted tangerine or orange, and graft onto that a bud from a favorite local tangerine tree?

Yes, propagation by any means, in any number, for any reason, is forbidden (federal as well as State mandate). The concept is that USDA and FDACS want a written record of every existing tree in their database, so they don't want new trees appearing where they don't know about them. If you purchase a tree from a legitimate nursery, it will have the registration number/license on it.

Malcolm

Check out the new USDA rootstock releases adapted to florida. http://www.ars-grin.gov/ars/SoAtlantic/fp/hb/bowman/rootstock.html

Hmm. I wonder how long it'll be before we see US-812 on all mandarin varieties... They said they also had a US-802 that made giant trees... I'll have to call the nursery next time I go to buy a tree and ask what rootstock they use. I think swingle or 812 would be the best. 802 if I get a nice big yard and have the space for a giant tree...

Interestingly, those USDA releases, now a good number of years old, have never gained popularity, and I don't know of anyone using them. They were unfortunate, in being released right when canker and greening became huge issues for us. So for the future, I suspect that we'll be switching to bioengineered stocks as well as scions, which carry a high degree of resistance to those 2 diseases.

Interestingly, sour orange is again becoming a popular rootstock commercially (not for home use), since the frequent and heavy use of insecticides to control psyllid has dropped the populations of aphids, which spread tristeza, to insignificant levels, and tristeza is not currently considered an important disease in commercial groves. In a home dooryard, however, there will still be aphids, and hence the potential for tristeza spread.

Hmm, bioengineered rootstocks would be pretty nice. Cold hardy trees Resistant to all diseases, and producing tons of excellent quality fruit would be pretty nice. It'll probably be a while before it's available to the public though...

I use some Sour Orange as a root stock here in Colorado on some of my trees, as the disease tristeza is non-existent in Colorado. In fact their is not a single citrus disease present in Colorado. Personally, I think Sour Orange is one of the very best root stocks available. I also use a lot of Flying Dragon rootstock, because of its dwarfing capabilities, especially on the six citrus trees that I have planted in the ground, due to the fact the in ground trees are full time greenhouse trees, and the container trees must be placed in the greenhouse during Colorado's cold winters. I have also used some Yuzu as a rootstock, but do not care for Yuzu much at all, nor do I care much for C35 Citrange. - Millet (1,267-)

Today at Wal-Mart I spotted some Ponkan Tangerine trees for $10 each. Before I picked them up I wanted to know if these were likely on a swingle. Some of the trees had branches coming from the rootstock, and from what I saw, there were absolutely no thorns on it at all, not one. What type might this be on if there were no thorns? (Of course, if I buy it, i'll make sure to remove all rootstock branches).

Look on the label attached to the tree to see who the grower was, and if wall mart has not removed the tag, call the grower and ask. Also, look to see if the bottom of the tree has a swipe of colored paint that was painted on it. -The paint color tells what the root stock variety is. Millet (1,266-)

Ok, I'll do that. I think I'll get it when we go back to the store monday, and call the nursery the following morning.