Precocious Yuzu

[Mulberry0126]

Thought I would share an interesting observation of mine - one of our Yuzu seedlings formed a blossom with male and female parts (though the female may have been a little underdeveloped), making it precocious! However I have read that these precocious seedlings don't often form flowers again after the first year until maturity.
It is probably only 1-2 months old but it had a very weak root system that was rotting in equal conditions to our other Yuzu seedlings so I micro-grafted it onto a healthier root system. I have also done this with Thomasville seedlings and a unifoliate US-852 seedling. All the grafts have taken nicely!

[pons]

I'm quite interested in precocious Yuzu. Is this just a generic Yuzu or from some special cultivar? How many leaves? And do you think its rotting roots had something to do with the flowering? (e. g. it bolted or had a gene defect)

[vnomonee]

Good idea grafting it to something stronger. I did this with a sumo seedling that flowered and made a fruit at 8 months, except I used a side graft on a vigorous pomelo. The fruit got pretty big but unfortunately both the pomelo and the sumo roots rotted after several heavy rains so the fruit dropped. I saved a piece of the sumo and it's now grafted to taitri.

[Ilya11]

The young seedlings flowering on the tip of the shoot are rather common in citrus including Yuzu.
But they do not repeat it in following years.

[Mulberry0126]

I've read that Yuzu tends not to repeat in following years, so we'll put this to the test and confirm. Still a really cool occurrence! There might be something genetic, but it seems these "precocious" types don't usually have strong root systems. I found fast flowering trifoliate to be similar and struggled growing it.
I'm keeping my eyes peeled for others in the meantime!

[mikkel]

I have an N1tri seedling that flowered in the same way. It grew very quickly and then flowered and fruited in the 3rd year.

[Mulberry0126]

This is that Yuzu seedling as of today, re-grafted onto a sibling seedling with stronger roots. It's leaf growth is a bit different, but the graft healed nicely. I have a surprising amount of success with grafts this small.

[Ilya11]

This graft most probably will not bloom soon, but if you cut the original seedling just above the first pair of true leaves, the emerging shoots will flower early.
https://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=30120.25

[Mulberry0126]

This graft most probably will not bloom soon, but if you cut the original seedling just above the first pair of true leaves, the emerging shoots will flower early.
https://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=30120.25

Thank you for the link, I may try this!

[Mulberry0126]

We found another precocious Yuzu seedling in the greenhouse today! Interestingly this one is older than the last and has a lot of buds/thorns leading up to the flower.