The Hollyberry Lady

Richard

You'll have to visit/contact UCR yourself or speak with my neighbor.

All "citrus" are in the tribe Aurantieae, but many are not in the genus Citrus. Not all Aurantieae are capable of nucellar embryony.

For a layperson to distinguish embryonic seed types in a store-bought fruit is problematic at best, and assumes a lot about the pollination of that individual fruit. For anyone to obtain seeds from a seedless variety is intractable.

In cases where nucellar seeds are used for propagation, the growers always go back to the same mother plant to avoid phenotype drift.

Personally, I think it is cheaper in terms of time and labor to purchase a known citrus cultivar from an online seller like Four Winds Growers than to try to raise a home fruit plant from seed. On the otherhand, if the goal is just to have fun, then go for it!

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harveyc

I know some folks do it for fun and other times because the don't have access to budwood. Seedless citrus sometimes have a few seeds such as the Sumo (Dekopan) fruit I got last year. I hope to get budwood of Dekopan in maybe a year if it becomes available as planned but trying the seeds was a fun attempt in the meantime.

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Richard

For those of us who grew up yearly tasting fruits from the mother plants in Rubidoux, Redlands, and Exeter -- there can be noticeable taste differences between "the" cultivar and seedlings, along with nth-generation grafts. My aunt in particular would give us all a serious scolding! Of course she was Howard Frost's niece.

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MediaHound

Fighters to your corners please.

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tommyg

Hi tom. Wow thats low humidity. You should try some misting it has worked well for me.
But yes in a couple of months the weather will start improving.

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The Hollyberry Lady

harveyc

What were you doing, Richard, that your aunt scolded you over?

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Richard

Yes, I agree. Keep in mind that Thornless Key Lime and Mexican Thornless are the same plant.

I think you misread that. I was referring to my aunt scolding anyone who claimed a citrus seedling was identical in taste to the parent. Of course, the basis for her comparisons were either the selected individual from Rubidoux or Exeter, or a grow-out of cuttings from those trees. I suspect the orchard docents at UCR would tell you the same.

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fmu65

I am giving it tomato food, as it is the only thing i have right now that is even close to appropriate, in addition to seaweed, big bloom, and mycorrhyzae. it is under grow lights and I most it occasionally with lukewarm water. Trying to take whatever help I can get and not "over baby" it at the same time.

Richard

The tomato food is already has significant phosphate, I recommend you stop feeding it big bloom which just piles on more. The seaweed extract is a good choice: it functions as a plant hormone (gibberellic acid) which promotes more activity in the mode the plant is currently in. The mycorrhizae should be applied to the soil where it will contact roots within 24 hours. High quantities of phosphates kill mycorrhizae, so there's another reason to stop feeding with big bloom. Otherwise, soil inoculated with microbes need not be inoculated again for several years.

Citrus perform well with N, P, K in the ratios of 3:1:2. For example, 9-3-6 and 28-8-18 have those proportions. To complement your tomato food and get near those ratios, I recommend you use equal parts tomato food and fish emulsion -- that is, for each quantity of tomato food you currently use, also add the same quantity of fish emulsion.

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tommyg

so i've been getting some chewing on my leaves, mainly near the middle and not on the edges. I put some flat beer and some vegetable oil near it as I hear that might kill the insect thats chewing it. Does anyone else know how to ge rid of bugs on meyer lemon trees? Its not aphids, or mites, it could be a caterpillar, or earwig or something else. I believe it came in the soil that it was shipped in. Please help me get rid of it with some suggestions.

Thanks,
T

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Richard

If you are sure it is not spider mites, then get a bottle of either BT or Spinosad. Both of these are simply bacteria and bacteria-poop in a bottle. The bacteria attack soft-bodied insects and their larvae, and their excrement is toxic to their prey as well. Since you only have a few small plants, I'd recommend the ready-to-use type.

If you think mites might be a problem later on, then instead get a product that contains these 3 ingredients: (a) pyrethrin -- a plant extract from african chrysanthemums, (b) piperonyl butoxide -- distilled from sassafras extract, and (c) a surfactant such as aloe or neem oil. There are several brands with these compounds; for example the "Green Light" brand produces Neem II and Fruit Tree Spray.

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tommyg

The other night I could of sworn I saw something crawling in there. If I have the nerve I'll check tonight and catch it somehow and throw it outside. I'm pretty sure it came with the plant.

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Jananas Bananas

I have kumquats that I have grown from seed:



And I have a good size bush of Meyers lemon in my garage for the winter.

I have blood orange



and red grapefruit I started from seed also:


~JaNan

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fmu65

Well, the tomato food is an organic granular type (NPK- 7-5-3), so I felt a supplement of big bloom every other watering could help keep more constant levels of phosphate available to the plant since the tomato food will break down and become available much more slowly. Also, the actual NPK percentages are so low I was under the impression (also I have been told this by a fox farm rep) that the benefits are more in micronutrients than the NPK. It is interesting that you mention high levels will kill micorrhyzae. Is that because it affects the soil pH? Plus, all of the label instructions, regardless of company, recommend reinnoculation on a regular basis for their mycorrhyzae supplements. Is this just to sell more product?
The seaweed I apply for exactly the reasons you mention, but I have stayed away from fish emulsion because its NPK is a little high on the nitrogen side. Are there additional benefits aside from NPK?

Richard

The NPK numbers are percentages by weight, so it is the ratios between the N, P, and K that matter when choosing a product for a plant. So for example, your 7-5-3 is equivalent in N-P-K to a formula that is 21-15-9 -- except that the latter is more concentrated.

By the way, in terms of tomato food 7-5-3 is a poor formulation because the ratio of potash to nitrogen is too low. A better choice is a formula with the potash level at about 1.5 times that of the nitrogen -- or use a potash supplement with the product you have.

But anyway, back to the topic of feeding your citrus.
Citrus benefit from N, P, K ratios of 3:1:2; i.e., 2/3 as much potash in comparison to nitrogen. Now your "tomato" fertilizer is surprisingly low in potash, so it was my error to recommend additional nitrogen via fish emulsion. However, more phosphate is definitely not needed.

High concentrations of phosphate in soil are toxic to mycorrhizae. This is one reason why dosage is key in fertilizer applications. When people worry about a formula that is 10-30-10 being overall too "high", they have misunderstood. The reality is that it is equivalent in N-P-K to 1-3-1 -- just 10 times more concentrated. So if proper dosage is used the phosphate level in one is no more harmful than the other.

In your case the issue is that the 7-5-3 is already "out of balance" for citrus in terms of phosphate. Adding more via a bloom formula is a poor choice for your citrus and puts the soil biotics at risk.

In many cases -- yes. Now for annual plants -- if the plants and roots are removed at the end of the season from the soil then you may also be removing your mycorrhizae population. Typically some is left behind on root hairs. I suppose a sales person could argue that replacement is necessary because of possible death from phosphate concentrations -- but I've never heard the statement.

No. And I'll add that the public has been oversold on the concept of "additional benefits" from products. Certainly there are many benefits from having a healthy soil and I make great use of them. However, there is also such a thing as a soil that is too healthy -- to the point that the biotics in the soil are consuming and not passing on a significant amount of the nutrients being applied and due to increased populations, feeding on your plant root material as well. A common example is someone growing tomatoes in basically compost and having trouble with root nematodes. If instead the soil contained a reasonable amount of fine gravels and the nutrients were balanced in terms of secondaries and micros -- then the nematodes would not be thriving.

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fmu65

Thank you for the additional information. Quite a bit of my info comes from the labels and the product reps themselves (you should see the fox farm application schedules and the fact that they recommend two different types of mycorrhyzal supplements to be used together, with the same species of mycorryhzae). I try to do ad much research on my own as possible (I own quite a library of organic plant care books) to prove or disprove what they tell me. I have asked the rep specifically why anyone would need one over the other, or even both, and all I get are vague answers about maintaining levels of the organisms in the soil (not just for annuals) because they die off and must be replaced. Again, this seems like they are trying to sell product.

The tomato fertilizer is from Doctor Earth. The balance did seem strange to me, again, but I keep getting the same answers about "added benefits for fruiting plants". The same is said for the fox farm Big Bloom, which has percentages of 0.01-0.3-0.7. I am starting to feel a little jaded on these products now.

Anyway, because I am big on research, can you recommend any books that address growing citrus (especially in containers)? Thanks again for your help. My biggest fear with this meyer lemon is the lemons will get to a certain size and then just fall off, as I have had many people tell me happens with citrus in containers.

fmu65

By the way, when I recommend to a person to get a fertilizer that is (for a general example) 1-3-1 as opposed to 10-30-10, it is usually to prevent the person from over fertilizing, as it seems many people lean towards in using the products. I just wish I had easy access to a citrus only, correctly balanced fertilizer. Even Dr. Earth's "fruit tree" formula (labelled for citrus) is out of balance based on your information at 7-4-2. I am not sure why all fertilizers these days are like this.

tommyg

Today i repotted my meyer lemon tree to a smaller pot. I think it will do better there and i also mixed in some fresh soil.

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