First post here, hoping to find someone who might be able to help me out. I bought a yuzu two years ago, and it fruited last year. Planted seeds from the fruit and had about 50% success rate, although all seeds gave two shoots that were easily split into two plants so that worked out nice. A friend has a backyard in east Van they do nothing with, and I have the opportunity to plant yuzu. I figure it will hold about 14 mature plants. I'd like to do this project from seed but have not been able to find all the information I believe I will need. 1. From what I've read yuzu take 15-20 years to fruit, unless grafted. You can take a two year old branch from a fruit bearing tree and graft and it will produce fruit in 2-5 years. Why is this, the new plant is only 3 years old, how does it understand that the branch that was grafted is ready to bear fruit? 2. From my readings yuzu/sudachi are almost always grafted to flying dragon trifoliata root stock. Apparently the trifoliata can survive to -18C where the yuzu/sudachi can only survive to -12C. What I have not been able to find out is if the yuzu/sudachi tree stock able to live to -18C when grafted to trifoliata? Is it -16C or -13C. This makes a difference, as -18C is a once a decade event and a temporary fix can be done to mitigate the cold, but -13 is every few years and needs more thought and planning as how to protect it. 3. Does anyone know where I can source local wet seed for the Flying Dragon fruit? thank you
It is true that yuzu and other citrus will take a long time to fruit when growing from seed, although usually it is about 10 years in my experience but it does vary. It is unclear what causes them to reach maturity. Once they reach maturity and change into mature wood, any clonal reproduction procedure (such as grafting etc.) will result in a plant that is ready to reproduce right away. When I make mine they often fruit that same year. My experiments growing flying dragon itself (a form of trifoliate orange) in this area are quite successful. It seems to have no problem surviving our winters outdoors, even in pots. However tests with yuzu and sudachi outside without protection have not been successful yet. They should work here, but so far I find they do not survive. I suspect the constant moisture we get in our winters is the biggest problem. I make my own plants, (grafted and otherwise) so trying various things still. I would like to grow them outdoors without protection so will keep experimenting. We sometimes sell the plants, but not fruit or seeds. Unfortunately we are currently sold out of plants.
Apparently there is a plant growing at the UBCBG: White flowers & curved branches. Perhaps you can inquire as to the availability of fruit.
Thanks for ideas. Just came across an interesting article on a couple growing yuzu as a small orchard in NZ. The interesting idea that popped out of the article to me is they figure its not the cold as much as the wind. They feel if their trees are protected from the wind they can handle the cold quite well.
