Orange shrubs bearing fruit

Hi all,

It's been a while since I've been here, and I have a dillema that I'm not entirely sure how to handle.

Back when the canker was spreading through my area (south florida) I had a very nice orange tree in the backyard. Well, the citrus police kept leaving notes in my door for me to allow them in the yard, and I never replied. There was nothing wrong with this tree. Anyway, long story short, they finally got some kind of legal authority without my consent and one day I came home and the tree had been cut down.

Here I am, a couple of years later with the roots shooting saplings up all over the circumference of the root system. I have basically four orange shrubs now, about two feet tall. To my surprise the other day I found one with blossoms. Now I see small oranges starting. At first I was going to remove the root system and just let go of it, but I just left it alone to see what would happen.

Now I have four orange bushes bunched closely together, all feeding off this one huge root system from the old tree. What can be done? If I wanted to save just one, could it be done, and how would I go about it? Would I have to remove a great deal of the roots, and if so, how would it affect the one that I wanted to save? If I leave all the roots, then I'll have these things popping up forever. I don't really want to kill it all, but I need to find a realistic approach to handling this.. any ideas would be appreciated!

Thanks

 

Cut off unwanted sprouts at ground level, as they appear.

 

The chances of the oranges growing on the new sucker growth being the sweet variety that you would hope for, might be small. This is due to the fact that your old orange tree was probably a grafted tree. Therefore, the root system was not the same variety as the scion, (the upper part of the tree that you picked fruit from). Most root stock used in grafted trees are vigorous varieties that do not produce highly eatable nor tasty fruit. Are the leaves on the sucker branches trifoliate? - Millet

 

i would say prune all but one stalk off and graft it or try to find someone that can graft it for you. allot of people would say just dig it all up and buy a new tree but for me if you graft to one of the rootstock pieces it will have a larger rootsystem to make it take off. and you could also have several varietys grafted to it. if the sprouts where 5 or more feet apart you could graft to one main sprout at each spot. more than likely the fruit from the rootstock will be sour orange or rough lemon depending on how old the tree was if it was newer say 10 years old than it could be any number of rootstocks not sure if sevil is a sour fruit or not. for now i would trim it all back to one main sprout let it keep flowering see what the fruit is if nothing else you would get seeds for more rootstock plants. and slight possible you may have an own root plant that might have been an air layer so you may get lucky and still have a good fruit not likley but worth waiting on the fruit to see. as millet asked if the leaves are trifolate than i would be interested in some of the seeds from the fruit. it may be a poncirus trifolate or could be one of the hybrides either way its only suitable for rootstock the fruit is too sour to eat never tried one but thats all the descriptions i have seen. but makes a good rootstock there are two poncirus trifolate one is flying dragon that is a more dwarfing rootstock than regular poncirus trifolate.

 

Thanks for all the information people. When I get a chance I'll get out there and take a photo or two to post here, it might help you people help me, because all this grafting talk honestly leaves me a bit... well, let's say I've never done stuff like that.

They say a picture's worth a thousand words, so let's see what it brings.

Once again... thank you, one and all!

 

Hi again,

Sorry so long in getting this picture up. And to add to it, I'm embarressed to say that the "oranges" weren't oranges at all, but a cleverly disguised weed nestled in amongst them posing as an orange bush. It was complete with seed pods that.... well, you get the point.

Anyway, here's the picture of my orange bushes, and I hope someone can give me some advice if this is worth trying to save somehow. They are about 2 1/2 feet tall now, and very healthy. I just don't know how to deal with this circle of orange bushes sprouting from a root system of my orange tree cut down by the state a couple of years ago.

Thanks for any help!