Author Topic: How long do citrus trees live? How long do their clones live - less time?  (Read 988 times)

Lyn38

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How long do citrus trees live? How long do their clones live? Do the clones have approximately the same year life expectancy as the mothers? Assuming all growing conditions are perfect (hypothetically). In other words, if a lemon variety is expected to live 100 years and a clone is taken from that tree at age 50, does the clone only have a 50 year life expectancy?

I'm curious as I recently found out that in many species and varieties of bamboo, all individuals flower and die worldwide within about a 5 year period. Bamboo, unlike citrus are monocarpic (sp?) which means they only flower once and then die.  That the individuals all die around the same time frame is partially because many species of bamboo have been domesticated for so very long that there are no wild variations left of some species, and the easiest way to propagate them is by divisions (clones).

What brought this on for me is that one of my favorite plants - black bamboo - is now in a worldwide "monocarpic event" and doesn't have much of a life expectancy left. The entire subspecies (if it ultimately is a subspecies and not just a variety) will need to start all over again from seed, and I don't think anyone knows yet if all seeds will grow to type. It's possible but unlikely there is more than one original clone year.

Galatians522

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Bamboo is fairly unique in that aspect. For most plants, the cloning process starts the life expectancy over again. For example the Brewster lychee variety is somewhere around 1,000 years old. Airlayered clones made from the variety have the same life expectancy now as they did 100 years ago. Oranges (and I assume most other citrus) have a productive life expectancy for commercial purposes of between 30 and 50 years. Grafted clones will have the same life expectancy regardless of the age of the tree they were produced from. For homeowner purposes, however, the slight decline in yield after age 30 is not significant enough to warrant re-planting the tree. So, the life expectancy is easily double. My best guess is that most door yard citrus would have a life expectancy of 60-100 years (not counting the effects of HLB if applicable).

Oolie

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Bamboo is unique in that sense, it's different from citrus.
Citrus usually do fine for very long term with exceptions for rootstock incompatibility which can be overcome with specialized grafting techniques like bridge grafting.

Is what I would have said prior to HLB becoming so widespread.

I'd say if you can grow in a pest excluding green/screenhouse a citrus will outlast you.

Interesting news about black bamboo though, it's just one type of bamboo though, plus there's lots of seed now for you to select a new cultivar from.

Millet

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Some old citrus trees reach the age of 100 to 125 years of age.  The Citrus Industry, a book published by the University of California at Riverside California states a few citrus trees living much longer.   Ferrari, described a tree in the ancient convent garden of Divine Balbilna which was said to be five hundred years old, one half of which  was dead and the other half having the vigor of an old man: but that the tree may provide for its perpetuity, has sent forth two little trees from its roots, the heirs of its longevity.  The best known instances of great age attained by citrus tees are those of the trees in the garden of he Alcazar in Seville and the tree which grows in the court of the Convent of St. Sabina in Rome.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2023, 10:51:14 AM by Millet »

pagnr

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There are also historic Citrus trees in Japan, dating back several hundred years.
In the USA there are several historic Citrus trees, such as the Parent Washington Navel, dating back to 1873, close enough to 150 years.
( You Do The Math, always wanted to say that ! )

If you take budwood from such an historic tree and graft onto rootstock, generally you will get a renewed and vigorous tree.
If you can select highly vigorous shoots from a flush or water shoots, you may even get a thorny juvenile type tree as a result.
Many of the popular varieties of Citrus are at least 50 years old, and regularly propagated by budding.
Overall there are few problems if any, with this process in producing healthy Citrus trees.
Where trees are maintained as budwood trees, regular pruning for budwood flush produces younger growth.
In many cases Citrus trees can be screened for Virus, and heat treated or shoot tip grafted to eliminate Viruses.
This will reinvigorate an old variety, and remove some of the decline factors.
Many Citrus varieties can also be renewed by growing Nucellar Clonal Seeds. These will be genetically identical to the parent, but fully juvenile.
These will essentially reset the clock back to zero for that Citrus variety.

Nick C

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i can't speak on how long clones will live but i inherited a seedling orange tree grown by my late grandmother which is over 50 years old and still pumping out fruit

Rispa

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This is an excellent thread. I have been wondering about this for years, but never remembered to ask.

1rainman

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If you root a cutting they grow into relatively small bushes without deep roots and not really sufficient roots. Unless it's a container plants most people end up ripping them out of the ground in five to fifteen years. Or they just do poorly unless babied. Even though you can get some fruit from them and they fruit quickly. Grafted onto root stock I have seen a lot of them start to decline in 15 years when the root stock is not a great match. They keep sending up new branches from the bottom that suck all the energy out and kill old branches. Just high maintenance. Other grafts are 50 years old and doing fine. They do seem to grow bigger and last longer from seed. Then it's usually a big shade tree growing to 100 years old. But it takes seven years to get fruit and many are not true to type.

You would need a proven root stock scion combination for long life. The stuff that's usually sold aren't made to last long. They put them on dwarf root stock for easy harvest and replace them after 30 years.

Then cold snaps often kill the tops when grown outside and the sour orange or trifoliate starts growing into a big beautiful tree.

But of course if you put the energy into water fertilizing, trimming any of them could last 100 years but it's often not a natural tree and doesn't do well on its own long term.

caladri

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The stuff that's usually sold aren't made to last long. They put them on dwarf root stock for easy harvest and replace them after 30 years.

Indeed, some rootstock-scion combinations are unlikely to remain viable beyond 15 years due to long-term incompatibilities either because of true incompatibility or just because of differences in growth rate becoming problematic over time, and while some traditions do approach/inarch grafts to migrate the tree to new roots, I get the impression this is not the case in at least the US citrus industry.

Lyn38

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Thank you everyone : ) That is so interesting!

Oolie, well, my bamboo partially flowered last year and will probably finish flowering out within 3 years, but unfortunately doesn't seem to be producing any viable seeds. I'll have to check the stand where I got it and maybe look for viable seeds online. Unless they are stored perfectly they are only viable for a few months. If stored well maybe 1 1/2 years, but it's very unusual for anyone to do that. I have 2 flats of bamboo seeds that I got online that have very little chance of producing anything, but I thought I'd try.


1rainman, that is so interesting, thank you! I guess that is why my 15 to 20 YO Meyer's lemon (maybe a Meyers, maybe not) is a lot shorter than the mother plant. It is in a container, but it's a pretty big container for the size of the plant. I think the roots are fine though. The roots of the cuttings I take from it, if they root at all, seem fine also after 2 years. But they're cared for.

How would I find out what rootstocks would last longer for different citrus? And what about hybrids? I wonder if this is a a huge wormhole so to speak? I wouldn't mind at some point to give a few citrus trees to community spaces.
« Last Edit: April 02, 2023, 03:59:14 PM by Lyn38 »

Lyn38

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If a rootstock is incompatible with the tree does it sometimes effect the taste of the fruit? My Orange was bland for the first time this year. It's about 20 years old. No sign of greening disease though. I'm pretty far away from that.

caladri

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Rootstock can definitely affect fruit quality. There are great big tables you can find in research testing various scions and rootstocks and looking at both brix, amount of juice, and total soluble solids. I'd suggest hopping onto Google Scholar for whatever fruit variety you're interested in. Fundamental compatibility can be a factor, but also just how the overall metabolism of the combined plant works. For most commercial varieties, rootstock influence on fruit is extremely well researched for rootstocks of commercial interest. Start throwing things on random zygotic rootstocks and you're rather more firmly off the map :) Myself, I'm playing with shekwasha and yuzu as rootstock, for which there is some such information in English available on fruit quality, but still orders of magnitude less than those things which are commonly used in the US citrus industry. I'm also experimenting with shatangju, for which there is pretty much zero information to be had. Such is life!

Lyn38

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Rootstock can definitely affect fruit quality. There are great big tables you can find in research testing various scions and rootstocks and looking at both brix, amount of juice, and total soluble solids. I'd suggest hopping onto Google Scholar for whatever fruit variety you're interested in. Fundamental compatibility can be a factor, but also just how the overall metabolism of the combined plant works. For most commercial varieties, rootstock influence on fruit is extremely well researched for rootstocks of commercial interest. Start throwing things on random zygotic rootstocks and you're rather more firmly off the map :) Myself, I'm playing with shekwasha and yuzu as rootstock, for which there is some such information in English available on fruit quality, but still orders of magnitude less than those things which are commonly used in the US citrus industry. I'm also experimenting with shatangju, for which there is pretty much zero information to be had. Such is life!

How fun! & Lol, yep, another massive wormhole! The varieties and hybrids alone are massive. I geeked out a bit with other plants this winter and maybe will have time to read up a little bit on citrus this spring while it's still cold and raining...  I suppose if I can find someone online writing about old Asian experiments in English it might be a shortcut to get further along for info on citrus longevity and rootstocks.

Lyn38

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BTW this forum is excellent. I've been reading some of the threads here and there when I have time. So much information here. A lot of people with great information. Thank you.

Calusa

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Back in the 1970's my uncle bought a house in Bartow with an orange grove right next door that had 80 year-old trees, and they were holding fruit at the time. Not sure what variety but those were the biggest, tallest citrus trees I've ever seen and I've not seen anything near that big since.

1rainman

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Pretty much everything they sell in nurseries in Florida is most commonly on sour orange root stock, then to a lesser extent swingle or trifoliate. But they often have some kind of dwarfing root stock. Like a version of sour orange or trifoliate that keeps the tree at about 10 to 12 feet sometimes even less. Other times it's semi dwarf or not dwarf.

Citrus from seed are huge trees like an oak or maple. You can't reach the fruit unless it falls down. Some varieties are a little shorter. It's a big shade tree. They keep them short and bushy with the root stock because it's easier to pick. The huge ones from seed are much healthier long term.

Galatians522

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Back in the 1970's my uncle bought a house in Bartow with an orange grove right next door that had 80 year-old trees, and they were holding fruit at the time. Not sure what variety but those were the biggest, tallest citrus trees I've ever seen and I've not seen anything near that big since.

If they were that old in the 1970s, they might have been a Pineapple or Parson Brown. If they were Pineapple they might even have been grown from seed.