growing citrus trees from seed

16 years ago

I live in Thailand and am trying to establish a garden that includes citrus trees (particularly ones that are less usual here -- citrons, orangelos, and Rangpur limes). However, tree nurseries in Thailand are rare and unadvertised, and the street fairs rarely have unusual fruits. I am going to a large market in Bangkok this summer, but am not guaranteed of finding anything. Is there any great disadvantage to depending upon seed to start these trees? Are grafts always preferable?

And if anyone is familiar with the Thai fruit tree trade, give me a few tips . . .

Any advice that people have will be much appreciated.

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Comments (3)

gonebananas_gw
16 years ago
Most citrus will grow true from seed. The plants will be spiny and take years to fruit (I have heard about 8). Grafting buds from the seedlings onto established citrus trees ("top working") has been claimed to speed things up.

The true pummelo ("shaddock"), and Temple and Clementine don't grow true from seed. There may be a few others.
citrange2
16 years ago
I recall going to an enormous plant street market in Bangkok when I was there in 2004. I can't remember the name, but it was certainly mentioned in the tourist guidebooks to Bangkok. There were definitely pummelos and Buddha's Hand Citrons for sale, possibly others.
Remember that some citrus, especially lemons and even many varieties of orange, do not perform well in tropical climates.
Seedlings (as gonebananas says) take many years to fruit, may not be true-to-type, and are liable to be unsuitable for local soils. Surely you can find someone who knows about local agriculture! If you can speak Thai, or take an interpreter, some of those market stall-holders could probably point you in the right direction.
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Growing citrus trees from seeds can be ultimate experience and fun. I started growing quite a few various citrus trees from the pip and most important thing is that you slowly gain as much knowledge as possible from other people here with great experience. Give your seedlings optimal conditions and grow at least 3 trees that come from the same type of citrus so that you have higher chance of getting a nice and productive citrus tree in about 4-6 years [under optimal conditions]. If they prove to have a bad fruit taste or no fruit at all, you can always graft your trees and resolve that problem for good. There is no better feeling watching your seedlings grow into beautiful, vigorous trees, a product of your love, care and connection with your tree from their very begining. Have fun. Anton
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You could try growing a Thai lime/Kaffir lime (Citrus hystrix). The leaves are used in Thai cooking. My tree is outdoors, and so I don't know if it is fragrant as a houseplant, but the leaves smell marvelous when you crush them. Mmmmmm, craving some tom kha gai now...Anyway, you wouldn't really need the fruit with this plant, and the leaves are useful. In fact, if you want, I have some Kaffir limes from the tree that I am not going to use. Are you interested in the seeds? Got anything to trade? I would love some cranberry cuttings, or some pink or white currant cuttings. I've got other citrus fruit/seeds that are not real common if you'd prefer--limequat, yuzu, Seville, Palestine sweet lime, Bergamot. Or bouquet de fleurs in a few months. Another one that may be good is chinotto sour orange, bacause the leaves are unusual ( it's also called myrtle-leaf sour orange ) and it is very slow growing. I will have ripe seeds in a few months. It seems that lots of people grow calamonins indoors too. Also, though I don't know much about growing citrus in the house, but just make sure that if you do, that you have a very very well-drained medium and that it gets lots of light. I germinated a couple of citrus seeds just for the he** of it by sticking them in cup of damp peat and keeping it by a window--but remember I live in California. Keep it somewhere warm--I am thinking of getting a seed warming mat for other stuff. I didn't soak them first. HTH.
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I sow all of my citrus seeds in a shaded location, usually with just plain potting mix. Sometimes, I collect a large lot of seeds over a month or so, after eating each orange or grapefruit or whatever, and when I'm ready, I may soak them in water over night, the morning before planting them. Next, I usually just plant them all in one large plastic plant pot, spread out evenly, covered somewhere between 1/4th and 3/4th of an inch in potting soil. You can also use a marker on the pot, with the date the seeds were sown and which type of citrus seeds are planted. Ya know, grapefruit, kumquat, orange, tangerine, lemon, lime, etc. When you sow a lot of different seeds, you'll be glad you put a date on them, because it'll tell you when it's time to give up on them and reuse the pot and soil lol. I usually gather up all of the pots either the seeds, seedlings, plants, or cuttings did not survive in once per year, and during that time, it's kind of like Christmas all over again, because you get to go out and find more seeds and cuttings or to step up pot sizes for plants you already have. After planting the seeds and optionally marking the pots, the pots are just sat to the side somewhere, for up to a year before I even check on them again if they're not already sprouted, getting watered with everything else when we don't have enough rain. When they get about 3-5 inches tall, I pluck them out and put them in individual pots, because their roots really start to tangle a lot with each other. Then, they're put in 3.5 or 4" pots, followed by gallon pots when needed. If you get this far, then you'll undoubtedly want to give it some type of acidic feed, like peat moss, pink bark, pine needle compost, or a citrus or azalea feed. Good luck
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I cut them off regularly and my citrus tree [grown from a seed] seems never minding it. I use sharp gardener's clippers and after a month or so the tree covers the 'wounds' by new skin. I was lucky to find a Japanese shikwasa lime [from okinawa], it's full of thorns but I will soon cut them off. Yep, just go for it, cut them off and show them no mercy :) Anton
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information
16 years ago
About ten years ago I planted 20 Dancy tangerines from seed. Today the trees are 12 to 15 feet tall and have the tastiest fruit and I have been harvesting fruit for about five years.. One way to tell if you can get citrus to come true from seed is to take off the seed coat and look to see if there are several little seed parts making up the total, if so you can get several trees from one seed. The large main part of the seed is a product of pollination and may not come true from seed.
Plant the seed from the fruit you want to grow. Select the ones from the smaller seed parts to transplant.
Or, plant your seeds and then transplant only the seeds that had several sprouting trees. For example say one seed has four sprouting trees. Plant all four, you will get three identical trees that have come true from seed and one that may not.

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growing citrus trees from seed

Comments (3)

gonebananas_gw

citrange2

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