The Tropical Fruit Forum

I bought and ate about 40+ sumos last season and out of all those sumos i only found 1 seed, it is still growing, slowly but still growing. but now i have ordered some through the CCPP and will graft it onto some sour orange seedlings.

Shiranui mandarin is now available through the CCPP it is on early release and a maximum of 12 buds can be purchased, the budwood cut date is January 31 so get your orders in now!!! I got mine ordered

-Josh

Its a defense mechanism from the grapefruit to discourage predators from eating it its the furanocoumarins specifically in humans, bergamottin and dihydroxybergamottin are responsible, in which these furanocoumarins affect the metabolism of certain drugs. I would think that since not all citrus exhibit these chemicals, i also wonder if all grapefruit exhibit these chemical compounds, that you would have to breed grapefruit looking specifically for varietals that do not exhibit this defense mechanism. perhaps there will be a new emerging grapefruit variety that will not cause these drug interactions, though i wouldnt name it a grapefruit so people wouldnt automatically avoid it.

heres a link i found talking about a new variety with low or no furanocoumarin
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/hybrid-grapefruit-busts-drug-intera-11-11-08/

So i went ahead and unwrapped the trees to see what buds had take and which had not, fruit salad tree #1 ALL grafts have taken and are green and cambium has healed them to the tree so im very pleasantly pleased, fruit salad tree #2 3or4 grafts survived 3 look very green and secured while one of them is healed onto the stock but is kinda brown but still has some green so it may or may not survive, i believe the 2or3 grafts that did not take on this tree were not lined up just right. while my biggest loss was on the rio red grapefruit donor tree fruit salad tree #3 had only 2 grafts survive and heal on, the rootstock on this tree was a much larger diameter than the other two trees and was much harder to line up the cambium layers than on the other two trees i believe this played a large role in most of the grafts not taking. so what i learned from this time was that placement of the bud is more important than anything i also cut much closer to the surface on the first tree than the others so i believe taking a smaller amount of bark off can aid in the graft taking or rather keeping the cambium layers closer together by cutting a much thinner slice out of the bark on the stock can keep a closer cambium layers which will increase the rate of success. i still have quite a bit of budwood to use so i will attempt a few more fruit salad trees when i pick up some more rootstock donor trees. i still have ALOT of budwood left from my order from the CCPP to do some grafting with. i am waiting until january to get some C35 seeds which i will grow out some of my own rootstocks and be able to graft at a younger age so i will be saving some budwood until then.

i was at my local garden center looking for some donor trees to graft fruit salad trees and all the meyer lemon trees i saw were rooted cuttings i believe as i didnt see a rootstock bud union and most of the mexican limes were rooted cuttings as well, i only noticed this because i was specifically looking for rootstocks trying to find some standard rootstocks to graft onto. but these rooted cuttings could have come from one specific grower as all the other lisbon/eureka and some key limes were on rootstocks and they were from a different grower than the meyers and mexican limes that i was talking about. and these rooted cuttings were much smaller trees.

that is an awesome looking tree/fruit

when you say watered overhead by sprinkler is this an automatic sprinkler or are we talking a hose watering?? what is the pH of this water it is getting fed with? and how often is this sprinkler watering it?

Personally i would spray the tree and all the leaves down with R/O water or Distilled water thoroughly to wash off any build up of minerals or salts that should not be there, i would also soak the entire container completely up to the soil line for at least an hour in R/O or distilled water to wash out some salt or mineral build up that may be causing an issue.

i water my container citrus with liquid fertilizer mixed in distilled water per the labels directions i water them about 2x a week with this feed and once a month i will soak them in just distilled water for a few hours to wash out the soil and help prevent any build up of a specific nutrient/mineral. this works for me on MOST of my container citrus.

Yes i planted this seed February 1st, i feed this tree how i feed my other container citrus, i use General Hydroponics Flora Nova Grow 7-4-10 and ive been feeding mixing it per the directions for "seedlings and orchids" 1/2tsp per Gallon, i also use Floralicious plus as a trace additive mixed per its directions for half strength "seedling" feedings. should i start mixing them per the general grow at 1tsp per gallon? should i switch to a dry fertilizer? i have some vigoro citrus and avocado dry fertilizer. the 4 biggest leaves just grow over the past three weeks so they are still young/growing leaves. but i do agree that this seedling should have grown bigger than it has in 7 months ive been diligent with my waterings/light requirements maybe i need to fertilize it more

What does the leaves look like on the new growth?  Its hard to tell but to me it looks like rootstock

No I do not believe that they do

Also very good to know Millet i actually have been watering my seedling once a week at NIGHT thinking that it sitting in the moist soil out of heat and light would allow it to more efficiently absorb the water, i will begin watering it in the morning and letting it sit in the direct sunlight, thank you for the interesting information. ive always heard of "damping-off" but i never did the research or realized it was a fungi related to watering i just assume when i heard damping off that it was a natural process in which some of the weaker seedlings would naturally die off. im doing my research on this right now.

thanks
-Josh

I have been growing out a sumo mandarin seed for the past 3 months 1 seed sent up 3 sprouts 2 larger ones and 1 smaller one, both the larger seedlings stopped growing and slowly declined after about the first month. Those 2 died, the smaller seedling has continued to grow but is struggling it started losing chlorophyll and stopped top growth. When i repotted it the roots had new white growth tips so i repotted and gave it a good watering. i use distilled water at pH of like 5.5-6 after i put the nutrients in it. the soil i use for it was cactus/palm/citrus mix and i added in perlite. i thought maybe it was losing chlorophyll due to inadequate light levels so i moved it out onto the patio into some direct sunlight for a few hours of the day. it gets watered about 1 time a week a deep watering. this seedling is the smallest of the 3 and i believe to be the zygotic seedling but who knows really. here are some pictures of its development, wondering if you guys think i should be doing something different or just keep doing what im doing and see if it improves and sends out new growth.

Great read and makes sense. I noticed one of my trees grew tall and flopped over, I did not stake it up because I wanted it to push growth from buds lower in the tree. And with this seasons flush it has begun to push new growth from buds a few inches above the ground where the tree begins to bend under its own weight. I will have to repot this tree very soon. Good information thanks for the good read Millet