Flying Dragon Seedling - Tracking Growth and Variations

[sc4001992]

Since there are some interests in the dwarfing nature of FD and using these for rootstock, I will document my recently planted FD seedlings. I separated the seedlings after 4-6 wks to monoembryonic and polyembryonic seedlings by visual inspection.

You can look at the photos and make comments, but please don't side track my post where I'm just documenting the growth of these seedlings.

 ========== Here's the early photos from Jan 2023 ========================
I planted maybe 300-500 seeds from my fruits of my 40 yrs old Flying Dragon tree:

I just planted out my seeds from the Flying Dragon tree I have, here's a few photos of the seedlings. They look very similar to me. I have many other varieties grafted on the tree and another tree 10 feet from the FD.





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I have new photos of the seedlings I will post later when I have time. They all look healthy, the polyembryonic seedling do have irregular size seedlings but I did not see anything special, just very small seedlings or larger ones.

[sc4001992]

Monoembryonic Seedlings:

[sc4001992]

Polyembryonic Seedlings :











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[bussone]

How big is the 40 year-old Flying Dragon?

[sc4001992]

Ok, just measured the height again. It is about 9 ft tall, I don't trim back the main trunk. The lowest portion of my tree trunk measured about 2" in diameter. I purchased the lemon tree in 1985 which had the FD rootstock so I let the FD take over and cut back the lemon. The tree was in a 5 gallon so I would say it was 2-4 years old when I purchased it.

[brian]

I would be really interested in seeing a picture of your 40yo FD if you are willing.  I have seen the non-FD trifoliate orange trees at Longwood Gardens near where I live, and they are nice looking.  I myself have planted some FD and regular PT in the woods behind my house and they grow fine but it'll be a long time before they are tall enough to fruit I think.

[sc4001992]

I took photos, will post later tonight.

[sc4001992]

Here's the FD tree, it has fruits again.











This tree has the original lemon (Lisbon) and I grafted Yuzu, and another variety of FD from UCR.

[bussone]

I would be really interested in seeing a picture of your 40yo FD if you are willing.  I have seen the non-FD trifoliate orange trees at Longwood Gardens near where I live, and they are nice looking.  I myself have planted some FD and regular PT in the woods behind my house and they grow fine but it'll be a long time before they are tall enough to fruit I think.

FYI: Tyler Arboretum (by the pond) and Scott Arboretum (scattered around the Swarthmore campus) have trifoliates, too.

[bussone]

Ok, just measured the height again. It is about 9 ft tall, I don't trim back the main trunk. The lowest portion of my tree trunk measured about 2" in diameter. I purchased the lemon tree in 1985 which had the FD rootstock so I let the FD take over and cut back the lemon. The tree was in a 5 gallon so I would say it was 2-4 years old when I purchased it.

Thanks! I was curious what these looked like when mature. Seems to remain contorted. The mature straight species I’ve seen run more like 12 ft.

[brian]

That is a really nice looking tree.  And a 2in trunk at 40yrs is a good verification of its dwarfing habit.  I had trees on non-dwarfing rootstock reach that size after only a few years - way too vigorous for a greenhouse.  I am glad I have since regrafted all my citrus onto FD and regular PT

[1rainman]

Slightly smaller than meyer lemon slightly taller than dwarf meyer lemon. Regular meyer lemon is 11 or 12 feet. Dwarf is 6-8 feet. It's the smallest citrus I have found. Some "dwarf meyer" they sell are just grafted on flying dragon but there's an actual dwarf variation that they just root cuttings of it and it looks like a bonsai tree in a small pot. In a large pot the dwarf grows into bush almost as wide as tall dense. The regular meyer kind of looks like the flying dragon more tree like.

[1rainman]

I'd like to learn how to graft and just graft onto dwarf meyer lemon primarily because it's the perfect size for containers. I had a dwarf tangerine I ordered also grew like a bush and gets about 10 feet. Only slightly bigger but it was too big for indoors.

[brian]

1rainman if you are interested in grafting citrus you might want to try a simple cleft graft.  Even though t-budding is the most common way I have always struggled with it yet and have better success with cleft grafts.  However if you have only small amounts of scion budwood and have lots of rootstock, you get more tries with budding

[sc4001992]

I added some more photos of my seedlings above.

[sc4001992]

1rainman, if you're trying to grow your citrus in pots or are trying to keep it very small then maybe getting a kumquat tree that is already grafted on FD might be the way to go. I notice all my kumquat trees I purchased from the nursery on FD are very small and doesn't grow much at all. I had mine in pots for 3-5 yrs and it seems like it hasn't grown at all. So maybe using the kumquat as an interstock might even keep it smaller than just FD. I have one experiment going where I grafted the Banpeiyu pomelo (10 lb fruit) on a finger lime tree. I want to compare the growth rate of this graft and one on a grapefruit tree.

[Millet]

Flying dragon is 50 to 60 percent true from seed. Flying Dragon as a cultivar always has zigzag stems and strongly curved thorns. It is an easy way of selecting true FD seedlings. The straight stem and straight thorn are not FD.  Flying Dragon  rootstock trees grow to less than 1/2 of the standard size trees. Trees grafted on  Flying Dragon produce higher quality fruit because of the slower growing. 

[sc4001992]

Thanks Millet, glad to hear the 50-60 % true to seed info. I was always wondering about this number. Do you think I should be able to tell by visual inspection when the seedlings are 3-4 inches tall? These seedlings are only 7 months old approximately.

[Millet]

SC4oo,  yes you should be able to tell the true FD. As the seedlings get larger you will notice that some will have less curving in both the stem and branches, but less curves then the true FD cultivars .  You will have to use your judgement between your seedlings.

[sc4001992]

Here's my finger lime tree I mentioned above that has the Banpeiyu scion grafted on it. I can tell that I will need to have a permanent support for this grafted branch as it gets larger next year. I will probably leave the graft on until it has a fruit so I can take a picture of the huge pomelo growing on a finer lime tree.

[sc4001992]

[Johnny Eat Fruit]

I thought I would update the growth on my Flying Dragon seedlings I generously received from KAZ in late June 2023. He gave me a bucket of small FD seedling and I moved those into small #1 pots and placed them in my greenhouse.

The first photo shows the Flying Dragon seedlings in July 2023. Kaz had germinated these about six months prior to me receiving them (Thank You again Kaz). The next four photos taken a few days ago show how the seedlings have grown since last summer. Some are taller, a few are still smaller but most have grown well since placing them in my greenhouse.  I have about (30) of these FD seedlings growing and will use most of them for grafting root stock. They average about 12" tall currently.

Johnny




Flying Dragon Small Seedlings (7-7-2023)



Flying Dragon Seedling Trees (4-12-2024)


Flying Dragon Seedling Trees (4-12-2024)


Flying Dragon Seedling Trees (4-12-2024)


Flying Dragon Seedling Trees (4-12-2024)

[sc4001992]

Thanks Johnny for posting update photos. Yours look very healthy, my seedlings are still small.

I will take some photos when the rain stops and post it here.

[Johnny Eat Fruit]

I forgot to mention on my last post that there is a significant difference between growing these seedlings outside and in a greenhouse.  In the last month my greenhouse FD citrus seedlings and been putting on much growth. I have several growing outside from the same batch I received from Kaz last June and while they are growing at 4-5” tall they are no where near the 12-20+” the Flying Dragons from my small greenhouse. Most of these seedlings are in a #1 pot but a few are in a #2 pot and they are even bigger. (See Photos)  The smallest one is the outdoor plant. The others are all from the greenhouse and just taken out for the photo shoot.

It is remarkable to see the difference in growth rates. Even when it is cloudy here at my location with a high temperature of 68 outside my greenhouse is 82-86 degrees F inside. I have already stared to graft a number of these FD seedlings with mandarins, oranges exct. If you are trying to start growing outdoors it is going to be very slow going. I recommend using a greenhouse for at least the first 24 months when growing seedlings. Growing outdoors is painfully slow for the Flying dragon.

Johnny


Flying Dragon Seedlings (5-16-2024)


Flying Dragon Seedlings (5-16-2024)


Flying Dragon Seedlings (5-16-2024)


Flying Dragon Seedlings (5-16-2024)

[sc4001992]

Johnny, Wow, what a difference. I will take a few photos of my FD seedling from the same batch, you will get a laugh.