I am thinking of trying some scion grafting ( I think that is what it is called).

Anyway, I have a fair size citrus that I grew,from seed, from a store bought navel orange. It is about 5 feet tall. I read that plants grown from store bought citrus, not the plants but the oranges themselves, would rarely, if ever, produce the type of fruit that you buy in the store.

Therefore, I am thinking of cutting the homegrown citrus plant to somewhere between 4" to 1' from the ground and putting scions of Rio Red Grapefruit, Navel Orange and Mexican Limes onto the rootstock that I grew from the store bought orange.

Any thoughts? Does anyone think that this might work?

The books that I have read make no mention of scion grafting on citrus, they only recommend T-budding and Chip Budding but I want to make the plant and variety of the already grafted citrus that I already have growing, i.e. the lime, grapefruit and orange, kind of like the 4-in-1 apple trees that are sold on the market.

I'm not sure of the method of grafting that works best but you can have all the different citrus you want on one root. Keep in mind that each one will have different cold hardiness so you may not get the fruit you want from each one. I would not cut the tree down first. First graft the new branches on and if your grafts live, then you can prune back the original plant.

The first navel orange tree brought to this country is in my home town of Riverside, CA. Supposedly it is some sort of tourist draw. Every 30 years or so the rootstock starts to die and they have to graft new rootstock onto the tree. It works.

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David Hall
Moderator
Dirt Doctor Lawns Forum

My citrus have stayed on the same schedule and do not seem to affected by the weather, or relatively so, for a few years so I hope they can exist together although I do not doubt your expertise.

I did kind of assume that there would be some cross pollination and some different hybrids of citrus result but I thought it might be fun.

I will let the tree grow for now and put the grafts at about a foot high while still leaving the main growth for a while longer, like you recommend. At least until the grafts start to produce some good leaves to sustain growth.

Thanks and I will keep everyone posted on the results.