Which varieties of citrus do best for own-root, grown from seed? I think there's something to be said for being natural. And I refuse to believe it is absolutely impossible to grow any type of decent citrus fruit without having to use grafting. Edit: Another discussion in this forum says that many citrus varieties can be grown own-root, but some maybe less sweet, and the roots require more frequent irrigation and are more vulnerable to disease. http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/citrus/msg012036217931.html And for some citrus varieties, the fruit resulting from the seedlings may be significantly different from the parent. It's all luck of the draw with the genes, and once the breeders found a winner they simply resorted to clonal propagation. For planting citrus seeds, one of the really helpful things is to carefully peel off the slimy covering over the seed, it helps the seed begin to grow much sooner, otherwise it takes time for this protective layer to rot away in the soil. This post was edited by Socal2warm on Mon, Feb 2, 15 at 21:14

Oh yeah, I forgot to say... Many types of fruit trees are almost always propagated vegetatively (cuttings, grafted trees, etc). Most apples for instance are unlikely to produce good fruit when grown from seed. Are you only interested in seed grown trees or are you just trying to find out how long it will take for you to grow your own fruit?

I'm also in NY (long island). I think the possibility for your plants to set fruit this year is done, at least in our neck of the woods. You should've likely seen flowers in July for harvesting now. I have a wee little pepper in a teeny pot that has only now set fruit. I saw flowers about 4-6 wks ago. Anyhow. I think your problem of too much foliage & very little fruit could be due to too much nitrogen. Barring poor stock that is. If memory serves correctly, high nitrogen will give you plenty of foliage but not necessarily support fruit production. Makes for very healthy house plants, lol. I *have* heard about hanging plants at the end of the season, but not to overwinter. If you end up with a ton of unripened fruit & the season is closing fast & you're not overwintering, you can hang the plants in a cool shaded place (like a garage). The fruit will then ripen, kinda the same way blushing tomatoes can be picked & allowed to ripen on the counter or the vine, but your plant will surely die. I'm planning on overwintering this year. This past weekend, I pruned 2 trees really hard. They were about 3 feet high & just as wide in containers. This weekend coming up, I'll dig them out, bare root & plant in a gritty mix. This year is an experimental one as some of my peppers did not produce useful peppers for me, I use 'em for cooking and everyday consumption, so I want 'em hot & full of complex flavor. Do a GW search for overwintering hot peppers & you'll get pics, info & guidance. My suggestion is to sort out where they'll get the most light first, then pick the best plants, have a backup (air dried seeds labelled WELL, trust me on this) in case one gives up the ghost, cut back hard & leave a couple of leaves, watch & treat for pests (you WILL have them) and water sparingly. Cold & wet sucks for us & them too 8) Good luck! Antoinette

What hasn't been mentioned here is that those of you who buy seeds or receive them in a trade usually have no idea of what the seed age is, and all things being equal as to how you sow your seeds in what artificial mix, when and how you transplant them after they have 1-2 true leaves, what you transplant them to, how you grow them on, any amendment used, etc. there WILL be differences in germination percentages, count on it, based on seed age alone. One example. I used to make seed offers here at GW and offered several hundred varieties at a time. And I asked for feedback on germination percentages. These were my own saved seeds so I knew exactly what year the seed was produced. Well I remember that I made a seed offer here in late Fall of 2004 and I was offering seeds with ages from 1995 and up, having offered seeds from 1991 to 1994 in a previous seed offer. Let's say variety X was offered, seed fresh from the summer of 2004 and germinated the very next Spring. For a single variety I got back reports where folks got from 100% germination down to zero, that's right, zero germination, with most being in the 80-90% range. Which says that if 10 folks sow seeds of the same variety from the same supplier with the same packed for date, or even known seed age, there could be a HUGE range of results. And the packed for date only tells you when the seeds were packed, not when they were produced. The only place I know of where ALL tomato seeds sold are less than 2 yo is Sandhill Preservation. Seeds being sold by commercial places will have different seed ages for different varieties as they rotate out and replace seed as needed and some but not all places do germination tests before they sell the seeds. So I agree with the others who have posted about the fact that there's no way to know how many seeds will germinate or how many will grow into great plants in the garden and bear well. But when it comes to seed starting I tend to agree with Randy that you should oversow. He says 4 seeds to get one good seedling, and I agree. I usually sow 5 seeds for each variety to get two good plants to the garden. There are just so many variables that enter into all of this that it makes no sense to me to skimp on how many seeds/variety one sows. Is oversowing, as some define it, wasteful? I dunno, I don't 'think so as all of us sit in front of our not cheap computers with added software, etc, and spend on this and that,etc., but do have priorities when it comes to how we spend our money. I don't buy tomato seed b'c it comes to me, and I won't trade tomato seed either, except for certain situations, but I know, knowing me, that oversowing a few seeds for anything I don't consider to be wasteful and that's because gardening is my life and my love. And if it's considered wasteful to use more seeds than some think necessary then save your own seeds. Go to the top of this first page, click on the FAQ link and scroll down to the excellent article on how to prevent Cross pollination. Whether it's a waste of money to try and ensure that you have enough good transplants to set out that you hope the critters and diseases and all else don't get them is, I think, a decision that each person has to make depending on what their goals and expectations are for growing tomatoes. Carolyn, who gulps at the prices of some seeds these days but she wants her Savor F1 melons and will pay the price. She does think that some sources for tomato seed have prices she would never ever pay, as in too expensive, and here I speak of OP, not F1 hybrid varieties, but again,it really is a personal choice what one pays for seeds/plants of anything. And a personal choice as to how many seeds of anything are to be planted. With experience some of these questions are answered, so it pays to get older and wiser re gardening in terms of experience. Yes, I'm on the downside of the life cycle, but still hanging in there.LOL