The Tropical Fruit Forum
Citrus => Citrus General Discussion => Topic started by: Bomand on June 17, 2019, 04:42:04 PM
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Early Feb. This year I had the opportunity to cut budwood from a 15 year old white grapefruit. It bears tons of fruit each year with no cold protection besides being on the South side of the house. I cut 12 good budsticks from it and refrigerated them. Alas when April rolled around I was out of rootstock. So I got out the hormone, cut and install them in rooting tub. They all took off and are growing well. Since grapefruit does not do well on its own roots I have decided to use the cuttings for buds and chip grafting this fall. Since they came from the top of a good bearing tree I see no drawbacks (bearing timewise) or other drawbacks for doing this. I have done it with satsumas and poncirus with success. Any opionions? Share your thoughts.
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Who told you grapefruit doesn't do well on it's own roots? Grapefruit does fantastic on it's own roots. I have 2 25+ foot seeding grapefruit in my yard & there are quite a few more in the area. There's a old woman here in Summerville that started a grapefruit from seed up in NY in the early 70's. When she moved down here she brought her "house plant" with her & planted it in her back yard. It is still growing there & doing fine after all these years.
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I see what you mean. I have tried to raise ruby red on its own roots several times and the slight cold that we get killed them. Truth be told. I gave no cold protection until they were estabilished....perhaps I should have.
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Mine are ruby reds & have never had any protection. I took the seeds from a fruit I bought at Publix. They came right trough the cold blast we had in Jan 2018 where we bottomed out at 16F without a problem. They only produced a few fruit last year, but are loaded back up this year.
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Just to give you an idea...
(http://i65.tinypic.com/333kdu1.jpg)
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(http://i67.tinypic.com/120nogh.jpg)
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Well perhaps I shall keep several of these budsticks and plant them. Worth giving a shot. Thanks for the pics. They look good.
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I have actually seen the grapefruit tree in Summerville, that the woman planted. She was not home when Laaz and I visited, but we looked at her tree over the backyard fence.
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Cool. I am gonna plant some of these. I do not have but a few container citrus...mostly limes. Everything else is in the ground. Our winters are mild for the most part but we get a cold one occasionally. If gfruit does ok in SC it can do so here. I think I read about you two peeping over the fence in Modern Peeper Magazine.😎
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I took budwood from her tree & have a grafted tree of her grapefruit out front. Excellent quality fruit.
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That is the reason I took this budwood. The fruit is great, tree is cold hardy in Hattiesburg Mississippi and is 15 years old. In my opinion a very desirable tree. I dont blame you for wanting budwood.