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Topics - Mattga

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Citrus General Discussion / C35 rootstock tree size
« on: January 24, 2018, 12:18:18 AM »
Hello,

This is my first post to this forum.

Over the past few years I’ve been planting some of the perimeter of my yard into a citrus hedge. I have a variety of lime, kumquat, mandarin, orange, etc., and plan to keep the plants in my front yard below ~6 feet, and the ones in the backyard below ~10 feet. Plants are spaced 4’-6’ apart, and seem to be filling in nicely and growing at a rate that is manageable.

Along with fairly tight spacing, several of the plants are on dwarfing rootstock (flying dragon), and some of them will be naturally small regardless of rootsstock (kumquat, etc.). This week I’m adding a Rio Red grapefruit and an Oro Blanco pomelo to the backyard, and have run into a question about tree size that I could use some help with (thanks in advance!).

I’m in Burbank, CA. and several of the local sources for citrus get their trees from a grower that only uses C35 rootstock. From store to store the trees are labeled as everything from dwarf to standard. For example: “CIT STD ORO BLANCO GRAPEFRUIT”, “CIT SEMI DWF RIO RED GRAPEFRUIT”, “CIT DWF ORO BLANCO GRAPEFRUIT”.

I called the grower to verify the rootstocks, and they said that the difference between the labels has to do with the top work on the young trees (3 gallon), and that the sizes of the mature trees with naturally grow to about 6 feet for dwarf, and 10 feet for standard. I thought that rootstock ultimately had the most affect on the size of a tree, but the nursery staff seems convinced that the top work on a young tree will make it grow like a dwarf, even on C35. Can someone with more expertise than me (that is most you!) help clarify? I’d be bummed to put a tree into the ground that is labeled “dwarf” and have it grow to something more like a standard...which in my case would mean having to remove it and start again in a few years.   


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