are orange trees grafted?

[keakar]

I know Satsuma trees are grafted by splicing a lemon tree to an orange tree but are orange trees grown straight from seed or are they spliced with something else like satsumas are?

I always wondered if I can just take the seeds from a store bought orange or tangerine and grow that same tree from it?

what about cutting a branch off of an existing orange tree and plant it to start a new tree? can that work too?

im asking because some kids broke off part of my orange tree and im afraid it may not fully recover so im thinking the section that was split off of the trunk has two branches about 24" long and i made a fresh cut on them and split the end to stimulate root growth and replanted them in a bucket with some fertilizer and potting soil and hoping they grow.

I want to be sure what grows (if it grows) will still be the same orange tree as the original or if I am just wasting my time.

[lil bubba]

From what I was told citrus is grafted to sour orange trunk for cold hardieness...I have eaten oranges from store bought seed but they didn't have but 8 or 10 on the tree...I do know if a tree freezes and sprouts above the graft it will be good but if it sprouts below the graft it will be sour as hell ,,, worse than lemon....Then again I did not sleep at a holiday inn last nite......

[keakar]

well I see info to suggest they are grafted for cold hardiness and to do things like make sweeter fruit or of a certain flavor variety, but I don't see anything saying it was "mandatory" that they be grafted?

I see very little to no info on growing orange trees from seed but nothing saying it cant be done either

oh well, i guess "if" the stem transplants live, i'll find out

[bigl3456]

My dad has done the branch growing trees and he has had luck with lemons

[keakar]

I always wanted to try starting with a seed but im not much for growing things so im flying blind.

my grampa had a Satsuma grove and he always said, if you plant a Satsuma seed it will grow one of two trees, a lemon or a grapefruit tree, depending on the variety of Satsuma tree it was. he planted a Satsuma seed once and it turned into a strange tree with leaves with *****ly stickers on them and one half was full of lemons that were semi-sweet and the other half had bitter lemons on it. a light freeze killed it when it was about 5 years old.

I heard that tangerines were fairly good success rate at growing the same fruit from seed but little to nothing ever mentioned about any other orange fruits so maybe i'll try growing a tangerine sprout this spring

[troy001]

satsumas gets seeds in them when cross pollenated with another citrus like lemons or oranges etc.

[nguidry]

Trifoliata is the stock used to graft satsuma. On the lower end of the trunk you can tell where the tree is grafted. Normally 4 to 6 inches from the dirt. Any branch that grows below the graft will be trifoliata and should be pruned from the tree. There may be an exception but satsuma seed will not produce a a satsuma tree.

[nguidry]

Trifolliata will produce fruit that resembles a small orange or lemon. It will have tons of seeds in it.

[red robin]

Originally Posted by nguidry

Trifolliata will produce fruit that resembles a small orange or lemon. It will have tons of seeds in it.

Yes Trifolliata is used down here,I have been grafting them for years ,actually they Trifolliata is budded with what ever citrus you want,satsumas,lemons,ect.the reason Trifolliata is used is because it is native to La. and it's cold hardy and it will grow hardy plants,you can find them growing in the woods,I have found some in the woods and pulled small plants out by the roots take them home and pot them up and they grow,they are like coco grass real hardy,I have also picked the small oranges they make and planted the seed ant they come up in a wk. or two.I have a few growing in a box outside,I had planted a bunch of seeds,they sprouted and grew and were transplanted in pots then when big enough I budded them.not hard to do.

[speck-chaser]

My dad used to bud alot of orange trees using Trifolia. He would collect the oranges from them,plant the seeds, grow them in the field,and when they reached a certain size, would bud them with whatever orange he wanted. He had several big orange trees with up to 6 or 8 different kinds of fruit on them, that he had budded different oranges too. Like said previously, the trifolia root stock is used mainly because it is tough for cold and diseases. Many growers are starting to use lemon root stock, mainly because of its fast growth,and can produce a tree for sale much quicker, but will not withstand the cold as well as the trifolia root stocked ones. Orange trees can be grown from seed,but will take probably about 6-8 years before it matures enough to produce fruit. Hence the budding process speeds up the process. My dad had 800 mature trees at one time.

[keakar]

Originally Posted by speck-chaser

My dad used to bud alot of orange trees using Trifolia. He would collect the oranges from them,plant the seeds, grow them in the field,and when they reached a certain size, would bud them with whatever orange he wanted. He had several big orange trees with up to 6 or 8 different kinds of fruit on them, that he had budded different oranges too. Like said previously, the trifolia root stock is used mainly because it is tough for cold and diseases. Many growers are starting to use lemon root stock, mainly because of its fast growth,and can produce a tree for sale much quicker, but will not withstand the cold as well as the trifolia root stocked ones. Orange trees can be grown from seed,but will take probably about 6-8 years before it matures enough to produce fruit. Hence the budding process speeds up the process. My dad had 800 mature trees at one time.

its very interesting learning all this stuff.

so the use of lemon trees is to produce lots of trees quickly but they aren't as resistant to cold.
it makes sense since growers are looking to mass produce crops of trees quickly and I imagine they are not as concerned with taking the time to produce hearty trees to last you a lifetime like a home owner would prefer to have.

this also explains why my grandfather got lemon trees when he planted the seeds from his Satsuma crops, I always wondered why Satsuma trees didn't grow Satsuma tree producing seeds lol. (as I said, its obvious I don't know a lot about growing stuff) my grandfather probably knew all about his stuff but he died when I was very young and back then I didn't care and never asked or cared about this stuff.

does anyone know if it matters the type of tree used in grafting as far as changing the fruit? what I am wondering is if something like a grapefruit tree or orange tree was used as the base to graft a Satsuma tree onto it instead of the lemon or that trifolia tree yall spoke of? would that, or could that, change the flavor or sweetness levels of the fruit? or is all that strictly controlled by the built in traits of the Satsuma branch grafted onto whatever is used as a base root stock?

also, does anyone know if you can just use any random tree sprout as a root stock to grow Satsuma from anything you have growing in the yard and use it to create a Satsuma tree from it? or does it need to be grafted onto a tree in the fruit bearing family? in other words, would it need to be a lemon tree or trifolia or could you use any fruit tree like a grapefruit tree, apple tree, pear tree, fig tree, peach tree?

probably a "well duh" statement but I would prefer a very sweet plentiful crop of fruit with very few seeds and while I like Satsuma, they aren't always very sweet and the trees I have been around are often produce medium sweet fruit at best so that's why im looking for a good orange tree in the hopes it will be producing sweeter fruit on a regular basis

[eman]

i planted the Brown select variety of satsumas and have never had a crop that wasn't very sweet. they seem to be a little smaller fruit than some of the other varieties. You can produce either maximum fruit yield or you can prune off half the satsumas after the tree sets fruit and get larger satsumas.
Proper amount of water makes a big difference in fruit size too.

[keakar]

Originally Posted by eman

i planted the Brown select variety of satsumas and have never had a crop that wasn't very sweet. they seem to be a little smaller fruit than some of the other varieties. You can produce either maximum fruit yield or you can prune off half the satsumas after the tree sets fruit and get larger satsumas.
Proper amount of water makes a big difference in fruit size too.

thanks, I will look for that and it says it grows straight from seed which is great, that's the first Satsuma I saw that actually said it grows from the fruit seed