Kill -A- Sucker... The battle between a good and bad Orange.

[Silas_Sancona]

As most people are aware, a majority of Citrus offered in Nurseries are grown on various grafting stock rather than their own roots. While this can be a good thing, when a tree isn't properly cared for, things can turn ugly fairly quickly..

My landlord's Orange is a great example of why you ALWAYS remove suckers that are generated below the graft on grafted Oranges, ..or other desired Citrus.

In this case, you can see how the nasty, "bad" Sour Orange ( Yellow dots / "G" = Suckers from the root stalk part of the tree ) have long since overtaken the " good"  Orange ( ..the two magenta colored "branches" / V = desired Orange variety.. Trovita, in this case )







Now that i got the tree under control ( Taking off about 60% of its top growth ) and can see what the heck is going on w/ it, i'm hoping i can slowly, ...but surely...  kill the bad orange, and save the good one ..if possible.

As far as the Sour Orange, aside from how thorny it is, having sampled other Sour Oranges, can say that w/out a doubt, this one is awful..  Sour is one thing, but, ..if it is possible, this one is both sour and bitter ( yea, i'm aware the two words mean basically the same thing,  LoL )  ..Sampling one piece was a bit painful.   Entire crop was tossed.  Growing near a Lemon ( ..Pretty sure it is a Eureka ) I don't want even the remotest of possibility of Sour Orange yucky-ness showing up in next year's Lemons.

...So yea, unless you like bad Oranges,  Kill a sucker ....on your Citrus trees.. Don't let them win..

[amh]

Does the root-stock provide sun protection to the grafted portions?

[JLM]

About a year ago i had a bunch of little branches come up from the graft point on my tangerine, i cut them all off. Wasnt really sure whether it would produce the desired fruit or not but it would have also looked really messy and unkept.

[Silas_Sancona]

59 minutes ago, amh said:

Does the root-stock provide sun protection to the grafted portions?

Morning, but not afternoon.. Regardless, desired part of the tree is getting bathed in bright white, Citrus tree "sun tan lotion" on Thursday.  Just finished girdling part of each trunk on the Sour Orange ....to get the death ball rolling.

[Fusca]

How true.  The last place I lived in the Houston area (Spring, TX) had a mature sweet orange with a massive branch growing from the rootstock.  I didn't notice until it set ripe fruit about 6 months after moving in.  Two clearly distinct orange fruits - 1/3 of the fruits were quite sweet and the other 2/3 were somewhat bitter but not horrible.  Branch was so close to the graft it wasn't obvious but whoever planted it must have not examined new growth post-freeze and let it grow.  I wondered how good the crop could have been had that branch been removed right away! 

[amh]

21 hours ago, Silas_Sancona said:

Morning, but not afternoon.. Regardless, desired part of the tree is getting bathed in bright white, Citrus tree "sun tan lotion" on Thursday.  Just finished girdling part of each trunk on the Sour Orange ....to get the death ball rolling.

There should be no shock, just more sweet oranges.

[amh]

3 hours ago, Fusca said:

How true.  The last place I lived in the Houston area (Spring, TX) had a mature sweet orange with a massive branch growing from the rootstock.  I didn't notice until it set ripe fruit about 6 months after moving in.  Two clearly distinct orange fruits - 1/3 of the fruits were quite sweet and the other 2/3 were somewhat bitter but not horrible.  Branch was so close to the graft it wasn't obvious but whoever planted it must have not examined new growth post-freeze and let it grow.  I wondered how good the crop could have been had that branch been removed right away! 

Almost everything I have left is root-stock, but when life gives you a bunch of trifoliate orange, you make an impenetrable death hedge.

Edited March 21, 2023 by amh

[Silas_Sancona]

11 minutes ago, amh said:

There should be no shock, just more sweet oranges.

That's the hope..  Those two branches are flowering atm, so ..we'll just have to wait and see how things go over the next few months..  Figure slowly starving the sour orange will shift growing energy back to the Trovita.

Lemon got whacked back pretty hard as well, ( was topping the roofline in height ) but it will be fine, esp. once i get more foliage on the canopy.  As long as the weather doesn't snap from from the mild, but not too hot stretch were in now, to an early roast fest next month, everything should work out fine..  It too got slathered in paint,  just in case, and to lessen the potential for insect damage past sun damage might invite.

Edited March 21, 2023 by Silas_Sancona
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[Silas_Sancona]

6 minutes ago, amh said:

Almost everything I have left is root-stock, but when life gives you a bunch of trifoliate orange, you make an impenetrable death hedge.

Yes, lol.. they definitely make great "security barriers".. Think only the spines on hybrid Mesquites are wore than those on sour Orange.. Osage Orange are pretty nasty too come to think of it.  

From what someone had told me recently,  " Ornamental " Orange used to be planted regularly around Phoenix in the past, tricking anyone who dared to harvest fruit. Never understood that since ..while the trees might look nice, city would still have to spend money cleaning up the fruit when if falls since very few people would pick it for use.. 

[Manalto]

21 hours ago, amh said:

Almost everything I have left is root-stock, but when life gives you a bunch of trifoliate orange, you make an impenetrable death hedge.

My calamondin didn't make it through the Christmas freeze, but the much-hardier Poncirus rootstock did and is thriving, soon to be removed.

Is 'Flying Dragon' ever used for rootstock?

 

[amh]

45 minutes ago, Manalto said:

My calamondin didn't make it through the Christmas freeze, but the much-hardier Poncirus rootstock did and is thriving, soon to be removed.

Is 'Flying Dragon' ever used for rootstock?

 

Sometimes the flying dragon cultivar is used, but generic poncirus or a hybrid is the normal root-stock. Was the calamodin listed as super dwarf or anything like that?

[Manalto]

No. Am I correct in thinking 'Flying Dragon' conveys "super dwarfness"? I'm one of the rare few who likes this cultivar. It seems to give people nightmares of being shoved into the plant wearing only a Speedo. I just avoid inserting arms, legs, and face, a policy that has left me thus far unscathed.

[amh]

3 hours ago, Manalto said:

No. Am I correct in thinking 'Flying Dragon' conveys "super dwarfness"? I'm one of the rare few who likes this cultivar. It seems to give people nightmares of being shoved into the plant wearing only a Speedo. I just avoid inserting arms, legs, and face, a policy that has left me thus far unscathed.

From what I have read, the flying dragon cultivar results in even more dwarfing than regular trifoliate orange. I like both forms of trifoliate, but the flying dragon looks very cool, especially in winter, where you can see the gnarly growth. I had purchased some flying dragon seeds a while back for grafting purposes, but the more attractive plants will end up in the landscape. One seedling exhibits very red fall foliage reminiscent of maple leaves.

[Manalto]

16 hours ago, amh said:

One seedling exhibits very red fall foliage reminiscent of maple leaves.

That's pretty exciting. Fall color is (was!) the only dull feature in an otherwise interesting plant. Do you know yet if this characteristic is seedling stable?

[epiphyte]

On 3/20/2023 at 4:18 PM, Silas_Sancona said:

...So yea, unless you like bad Oranges,  Kill a sucker ....on your Citrus trees.. Don't let them win..

ehhhhh... right now there's a sucker on my variegated lemon.  i'm waiting for the the sucker to get large enough so i can graft onto it a branch from my variegated calamondin.  suckers should be put to good use, unless you want a "standard" tree form, which i suppose most people prefer.   i prefer the multi-trunk form of your citrus because there's more room for epiphytes.

[Silas_Sancona]

44 minutes ago, epiphyte said:

ehhhhh... right now there's a sucker on my variegated lemon.  i'm waiting for the the sucker to get large enough so i can graft onto it a branch from my variegated calamondin.  suckers should be put to good use, unless you want a "standard" tree form, which i suppose most people prefer.   i prefer the multi-trunk form of your citrus because there's more room for epiphytes.

Multi trunked Citrus are nice ..as long as each branch of the citrus tree is a desired variety.  Sour orange isn't a desired variety.. so it is put to death.

[amh]

9 hours ago, Manalto said:

That's pretty exciting. Fall color is (was!) the only dull feature in an otherwise interesting plant. Do you know yet if this characteristic is seedling stable?

The tree is less than a foot tall, but someday it'll fruit, and about a year after that, we'll know.

I might try air layering in a year or two.