my parents bought a tangelo tree several years ago. my cousin ran it over with a lawn mower. the tree came back from the roots. took about 10 yrs to produce fruit. the fruit looks like a little tangerine, very small, but tastes like a lime (very sour) We sould like to graft some of my son-in-laws navel oranges, and red grapefruits to this tree any Idea of the best time of year or the best methods to do this? How long will it take to get good fruit from it? Please help. I live in North central florida
The easiest graft is a T-bud, but another fairly easy technique is a bark graft. Here is a link to a tutorial forum on grafting citrus with several techniques: http://citrus.forumup.org/viewforum.php?f=18&mforum=citrus As for the best time, bark grafting and T-budding work best when the tree's bark is slipping, which is usually when the tree is actively growing, but T-budding success falls off whent daytime temps start to get above 90. If you T-bud in the spring you can force the graft as soon as you know it has taken (3-4 weeks)-- if done in the fall you have to wait until spring and danger of frost has past. As for how long it will take to get fruit, it may fruit this yr, but will certainly be capable of fruiting the following yr (if you use mature budwood--wood from a fruiting tree) Skeet
Wondering where I could get a piece of an orange tree to do this t-grafting? I really want an orange tree, but dont know more about the process. Can you please give me more info?
The link in the post above is a good one, there are other links there as well as on this forum if you use the search function, you should be able to find them. As for sources of budwood, that will be a little more difficult for you being in Canada--it would be difficult to import. There are some on this forum that have citrus in Canada, maybe they can help.
