Can I grow a lemon plant from lemon seeds?
hoorayfororganic
17 years ago
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xerophyte NYC
17 years agoRelated Discussions
Growing Lemon Tree from Seed
Comments (8)Christine, I've started Meyer lemon seeds - winter can be long and gray here :) I scrubbed the seeds of pulp, started at the narrow end with a very sharp knife and removed/peeled that outer seed coating...but you don't have to, they just take a little longer to germinate with it on. Sow them approx 1/2" deep, moisten, cover the pot with saran and place on bottom heat. After a few days, start checking every day and remove the saran wrap when the first seed germinates, without looking back for notes, seems like it was about 12 days but as with most seeds, fewer or more days would still be normal. You can do key limes and kumquats the same way, the kumquats make a nice, compact, dark green tabletop 'house tree'. If looking for plants with reliable fruit in a reasonable amount of time, you'll want a grafted plant though....See Moregrowing lemon tree from seeds
Comments (6)Actually, most - not all, but most - citrus produce seeds with nucellular embryos - they're clones of the 'mother' plant. But, you'd have to grow that seedling out through its thorny, upright-growth habit juvenile years before it reached sexual maturity, lost the thorny habit(on mature growth), and began fruiting. Most commercial and hobby citrus trees are created by grafting/budding 'old budline' scions/buds onto appropriat rootstock - in most cases, trifoliate orange, Flying Dragon trifoliate(for the most dwarfing) or sour orange seedlings. Or, rooted cuttings. These resulting grafted or rooted specimens have the spreading, orchard-tree type of growth habit and absence or diminished thorniness that you would not see with a seedling....See MoreIs it possible to grow a "non-lemon" tree from a lemon seed?
Comments (6)If you planted lemon seeds the resulting plants are lemons. They will not be true to variety but they will always be lemons- nothing "non-lemon" about them. Don't try and judge a plant by the appearance of the sprout- it's way too soon to tell. Of course it is always possible that a weed seed got in there, especially if they are outdoors. Birds deposit all sorts of seeds everywhere....See MoreGrowing a lemon tree from a grocery store lemon. Good idea or Bad
Comments (23)Growing most types of fruit from seed is generally a bad idea. There is a high chance the fruit will not be as good as the parent variety. For those of you who are not aware of how this works, in nature fruit species can have a lot of genetic diversity from generation to generation. When a good producing tree is found, it then gets propagated from cuttings. People usually do not want to take the trouble of growing a fruit tree from seed when they do not even know whether the fruit will be good. Generally though, lemons produce truer to seed than oranges do. Not talking about citrus here, but for fruit trees in general, it is theoretically possible to breed fruit that produces truer to seed, but it takes many more generations of breeding. These are often traditional heirloom varieties that have been around a long time. Whereas the seed from a Navel orange will not really result in a Navel variety, some of these heirloom varieties can essentially be continually propagated from seed. The terms "heirloom", "true to seed", and fruit "variety" can all be very relative and ambiguous terms....See MoreDave in NoVA • N. Virginia • zone 7A
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