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Is it possible to locate grafting site?

18 years ago

I was curious if it was possible to find the grafted stems on a citrus tree? I heard that if a citrus begins and continues growth on it's original rootstock due to disease or freeze or other means, the tree may not flower or fruit, it will only have new leaf growth. If it does fruit the fruit becomes inedible. Does anyone know if this is true? I am curious if my trees are doing this, which is why I want to know if it's possible to locate the grafted stems.

Thanks in advance!

Christine

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Comments (4)

bencelest
18 years ago
Yes, Very easy.
Look between the first branch of your tree and the trunk touching the soil. If you see some like a healed cut around the bark or just an overlap bark with each other then that's the graft line.
I'll look for some pictures and I'll upload it here.
bencelest
18 years ago
Here's a picture of a grafted tree. Below the graft you don't want anything grows there.
{{gwi:569659}}
You can actually trace the line between 2 different trees. See te difference in appearance?
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rickjames
18 years ago
bencelest,
Nice picture; you can definitely see where one tree begins and the other ends.

mckh,
I am glad you asked since I just saw your other post and it looks like you may have some rootstock sucker growth on one tree, though I can't say for sure. I have read that you want to remove rootstock growth since it takes away vigor from the grafted portion that you want to grow. I don't think it will make any fruit you get from the grafted portion inedible (though it may not be the best since it has to compete for nutrients, water, etc), but the rootstock may produce it's own fruit, which I'd guess is mostly not so tasty. My parents had a tree when I was a kid that got taken over by rootstock--nasty fruit.

I can only describe what I have seen here in CA, but the average citrus graft line looks like a little knob on your tree's trunk anywhere from 2 inches or so to a foot or so off the ground (usually 6-8 in); it often looks like a change of angle in the growth and sometimes there is a change in texture of the bark that the above picture dmeonstrates so clearly. I usually see a diagonal line in the bark, but I'd guess all of this differs depending on techniques used...Sometimes the graft line is hard to see, but usually not.

If you look up Four Winds Growers, they have some pictures posted on their web site of what a graft line looks like too--you'll have to look around a bit on their website, but it's there somewhere.

HTH.
joereal
18 years ago
In citruses, sometimes it is very difficult to distinguish especially if you grafted very two closely related species like one valencia cultivar on another valencia cultivar, ie, MidKnight Valencia on Summer Valencia. After the graft heals for a couple of years, you really couldn't tell at all where you have grafted them.

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