The Tropical Fruit Forum
Citrus => Citrus General Discussion => Topic started by: Mike Jennings on March 28, 2022, 03:31:14 PM
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Last year I bought a Nagami Kumquat grafted on Carrizo Citrange. The rootstock was sprouting from the base, but I didn’t mind because it would give me some new shoots to graft onto. Today I was about to do some grafting, but I noticed that all the rootstock sprouts have bark splitting on their lower portions. Is this a symptom of exocortis viroid? If so, I guess I should remove the young tree! ☹️
I don’t see this on any of my other citrus trees.
(https://i.postimg.cc/dhZX5qSW/B7-D11028-DE56-4945-AECB-4-CD2-A54-F43-EE.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/dhZX5qSW)
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Its possible. Exocortis is a mild disease and very rarely ever kills the tree. It can develop on Trifoliate and its hybrids such as Carrizo. No way to know for sure except by testing. Generally, a tree infected by Exocortis does fine, and the fruits are not affected, but the tree can show some stunting. The disease is spread by infected propagation material and pruning tools. How old is your tree? Bark scaling almost never appears on trees under 4 to 8 years old.
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@Millet, Thanks for the reply! I planted this just about a year ago from a 3 gallon pot. Maybe I’ll give it a little more time and see if this split bark heals. (I gave it some fertilizer last week.) We did have a long dry spell, followed by a cold snap at the end of Feb., so I was wondering if that could have contributed to this damage. But it only got down to the high 20s, so it’s hard to imagine that damaging a citrange.
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A warm spell followed by a cold plunge, can certainly cause the symptoms you see on your tree.
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Happened to my trees also. The weather explanation makes sense.