My father has a grapefruit tree grown from seed. He lives in Tucson. The grapefruit tree is about 8-10 years old, in a clay pot about 12-14" in diameter, fertilized 3 times a year, is located outside and about 8 feet tall. It does get the winter chill since it is outside, with temps occassionally dipping into upper 20's. It has never really had any chill damage as my dad has some little xmas lights on it (just one strand) and will cover with a sheet if there is a real "cold spell" (in Tucson terms). The problem is that it has never bloomed with flowers,... and of course no fruit either. I cannot figure out why it is not blooming with flowers,.. and if anyone with any insight on this could help out, it would be most appreciated.
Seedlings do not have the sexual maturity of stem fragments (cuttings, scions) taken from mature, flowering stock plants and used to produce new specimens. You have to wait for seed-raised plants to get old enough to bloom. Plants grown from cuttings or grafts retain the sexual maturity of the mother plant, start blooming much sooner than seedlings. What seems like a normal age or size for a citrus to start blooming will be based on the behavior of all the specimens around that were produced using stem fragments instead of seeds.
This question has come up numerous times in the past. A search using the keywords [search]seedling grapefruit years flower*[/search] will retrieve many of them.
It could start at any time now. On average, a seedling grapefruit tree won't bloom till around 10 years of age. Some have been known to take as long as 20 years.
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