22+ Variety Multi-grafted Citrumelo Tree

[Mulberry0126]

Hi everyone! I took another progress picture and wanted to show the progression from day 1 to now 2.5 months later and how this tree has grown. It is all cold hardy citrus varieties and trifoliate orange hybrids including:
Swingle citrumelo
Dunstan citrumelo
Sacaton citrumelo
5star citrumelo
Rusk citrange
C-35 citrange
Tai Tri
Taiwanica/Nansho Daidai
Ichang lemon
Yuzu
Sudachi
US-852 citrandarin
Bishop citrandarin
US-942 citrandarin
US-812 citrandarin
Trifoliate orange
Flying dragon
Sinton citrangequat
Thomasville citrangequat
Clem-yuz (not sure if 2-2 or 3-3)
Dragon lime
Prague chimera
The tree was brought indoors in late January where it was grafted and placed under a 100W grow light. All progress has been indoors under these conditions. Naturally, some grafts failed but 80-90% took and I double-grafted a lot of these. In actuality, there might be almost 40 grafts but some have taken but not grown yet, or are growing slowly. All is to be expected with a franken-tree, especially with a smaller one!

[Florian]

Very cool. I've done that to a Citrumelo and a US 852 too but to a lesser extent and mainly because of lack of rootstocks. I am curious to see yours develop.

[Mulberry0126]

Thank you, that sounds cool too! I was gifted the Citrumelo and I happened to have a lot of scions leftover from a larger project so it became the guinea pig. I'm happy with how it's growing in such a short period and it's interesting to note how different varieties behave on this rootstock.

[eyeckr]

Impressive! Nice work

[sc4001992]

Mulberry0126, nice work. But I'm wondering why you wouldn't use a larger tree as the rootstock for this project. It will just keep your multi-grafted branches from growing at a normal pace so your grafts will be slower growing than if it was on a larger rootstock from the beginning. I do have plenty of citrus in ground, so I have the luxury of using larger rootstock in CA. Still looks very impressive though, great job.

[Mulberry0126]

Impressive! Nice work

Thanks G! Means a lot.

[Mulberry0126]

Mulberry0126, nice work. But I'm wondering why you wouldn't use a larger tree as the rootstock for this project. It will just keep your multi-grafted branches from growing at a normal pace so your grafts will be slower growing than if it was on a larger rootstock from the beginning. I do have plenty of citrus in ground, so I have the luxury of using larger rootstock in CA. Still looks very impressive though, great job.

Thank you! Yes larger would be helpful for this many varieties but it's probably the biggest we have! Most of our plants are smaller/in pots so this was more of a mad scientist experiment.

[sc4001992]

ok, I see, you did a good job of it.

[gordonh1]

This will be an interesting experiment. Do you have plans to grow it outdoors?

I think the challenge will be keeping all the varieties over time, as the ones that grow more vigorously tend to become dominant, leaving many other branches more or less suppressed and maybe not continuing to grow or bloom and fruit.  Are you planning to keep pruning/pinching the growth of the most vigorous scions to try to achieve more equal growth structure?

[Mulberry0126]

This will be an interesting experiment. Do you have plans to grow it outdoors?

I think the challenge will be keeping all the varieties over time, as the ones that grow more vigorously tend to become dominant, leaving many other branches more or less suppressed and maybe not continuing to grow or bloom and fruit.  Are you planning to keep pruning/pinching the growth of the most vigorous scions to try to achieve more equal growth structure?

Thank you, and yes, I'm actually in the process of transitioning it but also being mindful of the strong winds we've had here which damaged tender growth on some of our other plants. The following varieties seem to grow faster than the rest:
Swingle Citrumelo
5star Citrumelo
Ichang Lemon
Trifoliate Orange
Rusk Citrange
US-942 Citrandarin
Sinton Citrangequat
Dragon Lime
There are several others like Tai Tri that are newer grafts but performing well too. I've pinched/pruned Swingle and trifoliate orange already because they are the fastest growers of the bunch. Some grafts however I am okay if they don't make it, I want to see how they compete and keep the stronger/healthier ones anyways.

[Ilya11]

There are two drawbacks in creating the multiple graft tree.
The fist one is an overgrow of  some varieties on the expense of other.
The second is that in the more varieties you graft the more is a chance of introducing some bad virus that will affect the tree.