The Tropical Fruit Forum

Did you do anything to speed up flowering?

One occurrence that appears to relate rather directly to earlier flowering and fruiting is the orientation of the branches. Tetraploid Conestoga 011 branches that have a portion of the branches descending below horizontal have been the first to flower in almost every case.

Upright branches exhibiting no flowers.




Branches descending below horizontal were the first to flower in every case I detected.  I assume this could be artificially induced as well as occuring naturally.


Tetraploid Conestoga 011 flowers are short and squat with a prominent pistil.

Probable Tetraploid Conestoga 010 seedling in the back of the pot. The leaves are darker green, thicker and wider than the other 2 seedlings.




Conestoga 128 flowering at 6 years old. This tree has never been protected, hopefully there will be enough fruit setting to evaluate the fruits.

1279 Citrandarin flower buds.


Conestoga 010 flower buds


Poncirus Plus flowers



Conestoga 128 flower buds - this tree has never been protected and these are it's first flowers.


5* Citrumelo high grafted on Poncirus shows little damage
after a mild Winter with a low of 6°F.

1279 has fruited, 1281and 1282 haven't. I find Bishop hardier, earlier ripening, more attractive and better flavored than 1279. 1279, 1281 and 1282 are grown in the soil within a tunnel with minimal heat provided when the temperature drops below 20°F.

By monitoring the maximum radiator temperatures you should be able to determine if the temperatures are within safe limits. 86°F is an optional germination temperature for many Citrus cultivars. Excessively high temps are more rapidly lethal than low temperatures are.
All of my heating is thermostatically controlled. There's also a monitoring system that can be placed as far as 1000' from the central hub which can then send the current temperature to a smartphone.

I suspect it might be a form of approach grafting. However, there may be considerable uncertainty as to which are successful vs failures. I'd only consider it if I lacked grafting skills.

To save time during the initial transplanting from the germination bed to the field trial rows, I planted 4 seedlings per divot. This placed them tightly together. A slight space between plants should have been adequate for separation after a year. In fact, most were easily separated, but not all were.

Various selections exhibiting a percentage of Zygotic seedlings:










The crooked stems are caused by growing up against the plastic cover.

Boris, there are numerous evergreen, as well as, partially evergreen seedlings. Conestoga 058 and 067 are largely monofoliate and haven't fruited yet. 058 develops reddish - purple coloration during the Winter. 067 is a bit hardier than Bishop, while 058 is a bit less hardy.



Conestoga 067 grafted on Poncirus and exposed to outdoor environment.



Meyer lemon X Citrange hybrids.



Meyer lemon X 026 Segentrange.


Conestoga 058 displaying reddish coloration during Winter.

The deciduous characteristic isn't necessarily all or nothing. A few plants in a mixed population will lose their green color early and subsequently drop all their leaves. Another portion of the population will drop their oldest leaves early, later followed by the younger leaves. Other trees will retain their leaves until new growth begins in the Spring. The leaves will be heavily damaged by this point.

There's a tendency for trees to retain their leaves as juveniles, then drop them more reliably as the tree matures.
Deciduous trees should suffer less stress, especially in regards to Winter leaf dessication.
There are, however additional factors involved. An example is whether the overwintering buds are of the Poncirus type with well defined bud scales, or the less well developed Citrus type of bud.
One of my selections is quite stem hardy, but has less cold hardy buds. This leads to the first Spring flush of leaves being pale colored with distorted leaf form. Subsequent flushes have normal color and shape.

Starburst pomelo seedlings at present. Appear to be very similar. Perhaps homozygous? Pomelos are predicted to be Zygotic, these may not be?

Are you able to take a close up photo of the stem from the soil to the first branches? Meyer lemon ist often propagated on its own roots.

Thanks, it's quite interesting and I was not aware of this phenomenon.