Hi scamper!
I understand your concern for dwarfing. In AZ citrus used to be propagated on Flying Dragon or Sour Orange rootstock. More often now it is all almost always on C-35. I have many citrus trees on both Sour Orange and C-35 and both seem to be fairly vigorous rootstocks. I seem to recall that C-35 is more disease resistant, not necessarily dwarfing.
Question: You have an existing Meiwa on C-35. You need to transfer it to something more dwarfing? I am surprised. In AZ citrus grows incredibly fast. And I have a several year old Meiwa kumquat and it is maybe 5-6 ft tall. Very slow growing. But very productive for it's size. Do you get a good harvest off your kumquats in Chicago?
Good luck on your research!
It's abot 3-4 feet. Not sure age, since it was a gift. I figured if I put it on FD it might help slow down growth even more since I get lazy with pruning and want to keep it 3-4 max.
There are limitations on FD. Benching is one of them.
Growing very slowly then you will need to wait many many years to have a big tree in 10 gallon container.
It's good for ornamental purpose to gave few citrus fruits in the tree. If you intend to eat from eat it again you need to wait years.
I use selected vigorous PT and a selected Ischang papeda.
You can use comercial rootstockand you can repot the trees every year until final pot then after every 2-3 years prune the roots and change the soil.
Hard tap water is a killer for FD.
By benching do you mean the incompatibly line at the graft union? What limiting factor does benching have on the scion? (With apples it either takes or it doesn't pretty much, so just trying to clarify.)
With FD I was under the impression that while it grows slowing, it also induces precociousness, no?
Why is hard tap water a killer for FD? I have hard well water which then goes to RO.