hi...i'm new to this forum, but have very much enjoyed reading some of the posts. i've gotten into gardening, pretty much with a vengeance lately. i decided i wanted to do some citrus, so i gathered a number of lemon seeds, grapefruit seeds, and orange seeds. i planted them in seperate pots and labeled the pots accordingly.....i had all the pots together and one morning i woke up and all the pots had been overturned and everything got mixed up. i put everything back in pots, guessing what went in where. i now have about six different shoots coming up, but i don't know what is what. is there anywhere i could go to see a picture of a lemon seedling, grapefruit, etc? i know this is silly, but it's driving me nuts trying to guess what it is i have growing. thank you very much for any help. bill
Fortunately for you, the 3 you have will be easy to distinguish. Lemon, at least when it gets a little larger will have bronze colored leaves when they first start. The grapefruit leaf has really wide petiole wings (the part of the leaf that attaches to the tree). The orange will be the others. You may want to know taht it will take 7-8 years for the lemon and orange to fruit and 15-25 years for the grapefruit-- that is unless you graft them with some mature wood--in that case you may be able to get fruit within a year or 2 of grafting. Citrus grafting is very easy and I can point you to some good tutorials if you want. Good luck. Skeet
skeet....that would be great if you could show me where to find tutorials....i would be most appreciative. also thanks for the descriptions of what to look for in each plant. bill
Bill, here is a link to the propagation page on another forum. The first thread is a great tutorial on bark graft method, but down the page are some threads on T-budding which is the easiest method-- I had a 67% success out of 40 buds on my first try last fall-- this spring my success has been even better. http://citrus.forumup.org/viewforum.php?f=18&mforum=citrus&sid=057a0604bb3c0c367cac56ff669be57b Skeet
thank you , skeet....i will check it out and try and get a tad bit more information on this, before i go and kill the poor things. thank you again. bill
Hi Bill, With T-budding you don't risk killing the tree you are grafting-- the only negative (other than potential disease if you do not use good budwood and clean your tools) is a small scar where you attempt to do the graft. Your seedlings will need to be about pencil size before you try to bud them (about 2 yrs). Skeet
thank you again , skeet. lot of various ways to go, huh? being a novice, i'm not sure which way to head, but it's down the road a ways before i actually attempt this....just trying to plan ahead a bit. that thread you referred me to, showing the step by step grafting, was really informative and easy to understand......the easier, the better... thanks again. bill
Bill, One thing you can look for as you get ready is look for a source for your budwood. Most of the citrus states (and LA is one) prohibit import of citrus plants, and budwood without permits, but most of them also have state supported sources of disease free budwood for very nominal fees. Perhaps you can find such a source in the meantime--check with LSU or your extension agent. Skeet
i'm glad you told me that, as i, honestly, didn't have any idea where you would get any. i was envisioning sneaking into a citrus grove at midnight, in a ninja outfit to get the clippings......also envisioning being caught and on the five o'clock news in that silly outfit. thanks for the LSU suggestion, that is a great idea.....i go up to baton rouge every couple of months, so it would be easy for me to go by there. thanks again. bill
