tomforester, how I wish it were so simple. When you take a cutting, a sequence reactions take place dependent upon how the cutting is treated. Leave it lying around and the cut surface seals over to protect against loss of moisture. That is why we stick the cutting in the propagation medium asap; or if time passes, we make a fresh cut to (re)stimulate the rooting processes. All regenerative activity arises from the cambium layer - the "green sap" which we see when we scratch the bark. At first, cell division occurs - one cell becomes many. Next, cell differentiation takes place ("division of labor"). The "daughter cells" (I am not sexist; my text books may have been) begin to acquire different characteristics. In this case, the influences of temperature, lack of light and optimum moisture content produce root tissue and these differentiate into cortex and stele (the two I remember) and that's how Mother Nature makes our cuttings root. There is a separate process called "osmosis". This determines if water will flow into or out of a cell. If the solution (water with stuff dissolved in it) outside of the cell is stronger than the solution inside the cell, then water only will run out of the cell and the cell solution will become toxic. This happens when we over-apply fertilizer or we do not irrigate on time. In either case water only runs out of the cells and cell solution becomes toxic. And you might induce this when you place the cutting in a liquid with " special liquid fertilizer for citruses" dissolved in it. Do you see that "a lot of longitudinal grooves with exacto-knife at the bottom of the shoot to maximize the contact surface area" will aggravate the 'reverse osmosis' reaction?

Now that I have learned to grow citrus with no problems I have 3 Poncirus trifoliata of grafting size and 4 sweetlee tangerine trees of vigor that will be graft-able next spring. That's 7 root-stocks that I can graft my twigs from the grafted tree I can purchase. My purchased tree will grow faster by waiting a year and will out grow anything I bought a year earlier. My decision is to not buy a grafted tree and to grow what I have. If it fruits, great If they don't. Well we'll see My from seed Nagami kumquat for grafting to poncirus trifoliata Seed grown Meiwa kumquat tree. The tree fruit I am interested in. To be grafted on to the poncirus trifoliata moots through the Nagami inter-stock. May also go directly to my sweetlee tangerine tree root-stock, Seed grown sweetlee tangerine tree for root-stock #1 Seed grown sweetlee tangerine tree for root-stock #2 Seed grown sweetlee tangerine tree for root-stock #3 Seed grown sweetlee tangerine tree for root-stock #4 Seed grown poncirus trifoliata to be grafted on Is posted above . Its in a blue 55 gallon half drum. This completes what I have done and what I have. If I think of anything I'll add on to this thread Steve This post was edited by poncirusguy on Tue, Nov 5, 13 at 18:29

Thank you jesse09 I will definitely kept that in mind with the Vitalizer. Thank you ocrelaris for your advice also on the fertilizer and soil. I will definately try in springtime to find the 5-1-1. Its hard to look for anything like that where I live. I might have to purchase online. I feel great that you tell me my trees look good. That was one of my major concerns. I worry about them and only want to help them grow healthy and strong. And of course have fruit. My mom had noticed that the tango, lime and one of the navel trees are protected from one side by my gaming board. They really do not have leaf loss verses the other three on the opposite side. They don't have a barrier as in wall next to them. So those two lemon and that other navel trees are the one losing more leaves. So I'm wondering maybe they are getting some sort of draft. Once I place the pallets I will be able to tell if that Is helping. Which I hope it will. Because now my navel that had the one fruit had dropped it. Thank you poncirusguy for your input. I will give that a try too. To see if it will help my trees. Right now I just want to help them stop dropping their leaves and fruit. The two so far that have been doing well with holding on to the fruit is the lemon that you saw in picture and my tango with the bigger fruit.

Welcome to the forum! Well, the leaf structure is called, "winged petiole", for that small leaf on the petiole (leaf stem). The long thorns would suggest what you've got growing is just rootstock - the cultivar scion having died at sometime in the past, or, being overtaken by rootstock shoots. Please provide some photos of the base of the tree. We need to see where the graft line is on the trunk, where the actual cultivar was grafted to the rootstock, if this was a grafted tree. If you have many shoots emanating from the ground, most certainly just rootstock growth. If you have just one trunk, and there is no graft line, it is possible this is a seedling tree (citrus trees grown from seed also tend to be more thorny). Citrus cultivars with these winged petioles include Yuzu, grapefruits, grapefruit hybrids, pummelos, pummelo hybrids, some sweet and sour oranges, and rootstock with this sort of winged petiole would be citrumelo. If this tree is 15' tall, and has been around a while with no fruit, probably time to dispatch with it, and plant a citrus tree of your choosing that will provide fruit, now. If it is, indeed, rootstock, the fruit will be inedible, so why wait (possibly many more years), to get inedible fruit? Post photos of the trunk of this tree, that will help us quite a bit. Patty S.