Funkthulhu

Hey guys (and gals),

I've been growing some citrus from seed for a while and, though some are only a few years old, I do have a Pomelo that is nearly 5. It is healthy, it is happy, it is not (so far as I can tell) root-bound, and it has a sturdy trunk (for its size) and ample crown.

So, my quandry is this: why won't it bloom?

Is there anything I can do to "coerce" it into producing?

Re-pot?
Special ferts?
Voodoo chants?

Let me know if any of you have any magic bullets and I'm open to any of your container grown citrus anecdotes as well.

Cheers,

-Erik

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"Ph'nglui musaglw'nanna Funkthulhu R'Omahaea wgah'basjoo fhtagn"
"In his house at Omaha, dread Funkthulhu plants bananas."

Richard

It's not a matter of "why", but "when". Onset of blooming in citrus from seed is typically 7 years, and longer in greenhouse conditions. In breeding programs, a representative crop is not expected for 10-12 years.

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Doodling along at tangentvectors.org

Funkthulhu

7 Years!?!

Guess I'll just have to stay patient then...

__________________
"Ph'nglui musaglw'nanna Funkthulhu R'Omahaea wgah'basjoo fhtagn"
"In his house at Omaha, dread Funkthulhu plants bananas."

Nancy

From what I've heard, it may never flower. I have a grapefruit that I started from seed 15 years ago. The tree seems perfectly happy, but it doesn't flower. My other citrus trees (three of which are grafted, and the fourth is a Meyer lemon) produce excellent fruit. Under the best circumstances, fruiting takes a long time, and one problem with seeds is that you don't know where the pollen came from. I realize that nurseries have an axe to grind, but people I've talked to in nurseries say my tree will probably never have fruit. I haven't totally given up, but after 15 years it does seem pretty likely that they're right.

Richard

There's an old British idiom: "penny wise and pound foolish". I think starting fruit trees from seed when well-bred cultivars exist falls within the idiom - because the cost of a tree in a 5 to 15 gallon container is insignificant in comparison to the labor and resources expended over the life of the tree.

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Doodling along at tangentvectors.org

Nancy

Agreed. I should mention that I never seriously intended to grow a grapefruit tree. I was living in Iowa at the time, and I was eating a grapefruit. There was a sprouted seed in the grapefruit. I stuck it in some dirt just to see what would happen. I ended up with a very tiny tree, like maybe a foot tall. When the tree moved with us to Indiana, it grew to several feet. When we moved to Florida, it suddenly shot up to about 15 feet, at which point I really had to plant it in the ground. That's how I ended up with a grapefruit tree. I couldn't just let it die after several years and two major moves. If I seriously wanted to grow grapefruit, I would buy a grafted tree from a nursery.

Richard

You could graft it over with your favorite cultivar!

__________________
Doodling along at tangentvectors.org

Funkthulhu

It would seem that most of my plants, citrus and otherwise, are happy orphans who know I won't kick them out.

Still, it would be nice if one of the little buggers would give something back. Just some blooming, or even 1 pineapple would make it so much more rewarding.

__________________
"Ph'nglui musaglw'nanna Funkthulhu R'Omahaea wgah'basjoo fhtagn"
"In his house at Omaha, dread Funkthulhu plants bananas."