Desperately Need a Root

[NeoMatrix]

... (Dirty minded buggers)

I have a lemon tree that requires a graft. I hear that the bush lemon root is the best to graft onto as it produces a better lemon fruit.

The fruit at the moment is really dimpled and rough skin surface(AKA Bush lemon). If I graft onto the bush lemon base it should produce a better lemon fruit....

Seriously.... ( no laughing allowed) ....

Lemon honey each an every morning ,... yum..... (Well yak first then yum)....













(Watching the views for this thread click..... )

[blackcat4866]

Re: Desperately Need a Root

Sorry. No lemon trees growing around here. It might have something to do with the 7 cold snowy months per year. Now 1000 miles south ... you'll find lemons. Any Florida members? =^..^=

[NeoMatrix]

Re: Desperately Need a Root

The missus an I have had the same lemon tree since we first moved into current location.
We had a long dry period some years back and we let the lemon tree die back.
After it died back I pruned the tree down to a basic trunk root.
After pruning the darn lemon tree fruit came out with a totally different lemon variety.
I've concluded that the original tree is a bush lemon and the original unknown fruit was a graft.

I wish to find out what is the best lemon graft that goes onto the bush lemon tree root.
I would like to find out how to graft the unknown fruit back onto the root of the bush lemon trunk.

How high off the ground can I cut the trunk, an what is the best method to do the graft?

[Iowatech]

Re: Desperately Need a Root

I have the same luck as blackcat4866. I think it may have more to do with the amount of sunlight though. I had a pecan sapling growing inside for quite a while back in the day when I lived in the tropics of central Illinois, but it expired rather rapidly after I moved here.
It apparently was a male tree, so ironically or maybe for the best I didn't get any nuts from it.
I'll have to ask my brother, years ago I got a grocery sack full of pecans from the tree at the place he used to live at.
There's some peach trees and wild plum trees out at Mom and Dad's place, would any of that work?

[NeoMatrix]

Re: Desperately Need a Root

I have the same luck as blackcat4866. I think it may have more to do with the amount of sunlight though. I had a pecan sapling growing inside for quite a while back in the day when I lived in the tropics of central Illinois, but it expired rather rapidly after I moved here.
It apparently was a male tree, so ironically or maybe for the best I didn't get any nuts from it.
I'll have to ask my brother, years ago I got a grocery sack full of pecans from the tree at the place he used to live at.
There's some peach trees and wild plum trees out at Mom and Dad's place, would any of that work?

I like most of the nut variety's except cashchew. I could never get a liking for them.

I was talking to a person a few days ago. They were talking about placing two or three stone-fruit grafts on the bush lemon root. In affect you would have one tree with three different fruits. I'm not sure I like that idea...

[blackcat4866]

Re: Desperately Need a Root

I suspect that you're right about the graft. I've never done it myself, but I've heard told by a very talented fruit tree grafter:

You take a very sharp razor knife and make a "T" shaped shallow cut in the outer bark, into the cambium ~25mm long each cut. Gently peel back the bark. On your graft cut the end to a point, exposing some of the cambium. Insert the graft into the cut, and secure it with masking tape. They also make special rubber strips to wrap around a graft, that will fall away after a couple years. Object moved

Either the graft will take, or it will fall away, and the hole heals over.

If it were me, I think I'd take tour of the local lemon orchards. In my pocket I might have a pair of small nippers. When I got home I might find that 3 or 4 fresh green ends about 13cm long had fallen into my pocket. =^..^=

[NeoMatrix]

Re: Desperately Need a Root

I suspect that you're right about the graft. I've never done it myself, but I've heard told by a very talented fruit tree grafter:

You take a very sharp razor knife and make a "T" shaped shallow cut in the outer bark, into the cambium ~25mm long each cut. Gently peel back the bark. On your graft cut the end to a point, exposing some of the cambium. Insert the graft into the cut, and secure it with masking tape. They also make special rubber strips to wrap around a graft, that will fall away after a couple years. Object moved

Either the graft will take, or it will fall away, and the hole heals over.

If it were me, I think I'd take tour of the local lemon orchards. In my pocket I might have a pair of small nippers. When I got home I might find that 3 or 4 fresh green ends about 13cm long had fallen into my pocket. =^..^=

Cuttings in the pocket sound like an idea...
I don't know the original graft, that's the problem. I was hoping someone might be able to tell me so I don't kill the tree root. I want to remove the current morbid looking bush fruit off the tree base root all together, and then place a new completely different graft in its place. That means cutting the base of the tree back to near ground level. I don't want to remove the tree and plant new because that will reqire a lot of earth work.

[blackcat4866]

Re: Desperately Need a Root

I personally would not do anything to the current bush until you had a couple live grafts growing. Once it is clear that your grafts are taking, then I'd trim back the original bush a little at a time until only the grafts are left. Does that seem logical? =^..^=

[NeoMatrix]

Re: Desperately Need a Root

I personally would not do anything to the current bush until you had a couple live grafts growing. Once it is clear that your grafts are taking, then I'd trim back the original bush a little at a time until only the grafts are left. Does that seem logical? =^..^=

I actually thought those same sentiments after I post my last thread....

[blackcat4866]

Re: Desperately Need a Root

About 3 years ago someone walking through my neighborhood demonstrated girdling on the red maple in my front yard. At the time it was ~75mm diameter at the base.

No matter what I did the top very slowly died. Unexpectedly the root system sent up lots of feeders. When they got to about a meter high, I cut back all but the 3 straightest tallest feeders. At 1.3m I left the best two feeders. At 1.6m I left the one best feeder. It's back to 5m tall now, about where it all started 3 years ago. As long as the root system is sound, it can survive a lot. =^..^=

[NeoMatrix]

Re: Desperately Need a Root

About 3 years ago someone walking through my neighborhood demonstrated girdling on the red maple in my front yard. At the time it was ~75mm diameter at the base.

No matter what I did the top very slowly died. Unexpectedly the root system sent up lots of feeders. When they got to about a meter high, I cut back all but the 3 straightest tallest feeders. At 1.3m I left the best two feeders. At 1.6m I left the one best feeder. It's back to 5m tall now, about where it all started 3 years ago. As long as the root system is sound, it can survive a lot. =^..^=

I had to Google girdling...
In Oz girdling is known as ring-barking or cutting the bark off a tree in a ring around the tree. Another term used is chemical Tordoning, where an axe cut or hole is drilled into the tree and sprayed with Tordon-Chemical; the tree obviously dies.


Nice little so-and-so neighbourhood vandal... I'm guessing one of your neighbours doesn't like messy deciduous trees in their neighbourhood.

Years ago I remove one big Poinciana tree from my residency when we first moved in. It was a messy deciduous tree that caused the neighbours a lot of regular gutter cleaning grief... A massive storm broke off large branches that narrowly missed our house, over the footpath and the neighbouring fence. The council an I decided it was time to remove what was left of the tree.

[Iowatech]

Re: Desperately Need a Root

About 3 years ago someone walking through my neighborhood demonstrated girdling on the red maple in my front yard. At the time it was ~75mm diameter at the base.

No matter what I did the top very slowly died. Unexpectedly the root system sent up lots of feeders. When they got to about a meter high, I cut back all but the 3 straightest tallest feeders. At 1.3m I left the best two feeders. At 1.6m I left the one best feeder. It's back to 5m tall now, about where it all started 3 years ago. As long as the root system is sound, it can survive a lot. =^..^=

If there is any chance that will happen again, you may want to set up a defensive perimeter. And for that, I recommend boxelder trees!
Sure, they are probably one of the most massive weeds on Earth, but they are almost impossible to kill (I've got a rather large boxelder tree in the backyard that apparently was unsuccessfully entirely cut down at least once).
Also, boxelder trees are part of the maple tree family. So you can use what you call the "feeders" on the grill to give the food a nice smokey scent.
(We actually tapped a boxelder tree back in the day and made syrup from the sap when I was growing up. I don't recommend you trying that though. It turns out you need a lot more sap than you'd think to make an appropriate amount of syrup to apply to even one standard waffle.)

[NeoMatrix]

Re: Desperately Need a Root

If there is any chance that will happen again, you may want to set up a defensive perimeter. And for that, I recommend boxelder trees!
Sure, they are probably one of the most massive weeds on Earth, but they are almost impossible to kill (I've got a rather large boxelder tree in the backyard that apparently was unsuccessfully entirely cut down at least once).
Also, boxelder trees are part of the maple tree family. So you can use what you call the "feeders" on the grill to give the food a nice smokey scent.
(We actually tapped a boxelder tree back in the day and made syrup from the sap when I was growing up. I don't recommend you trying that though. It turns out you need a lot more sap than you'd think to make an appropriate amount of syrup to apply to even one standard waffle.)

Well there you go...
I never knew you could get box elder(maple family) syrup out of a box elder tree.
I naturally thought that maple syrup was just the sales label for a shop bought product.
I assumed the shop bought syrup was made from just regular sugar,artificial flavour and colours.

I've been headjamacated....

thank you Iowatech.

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[Lagonda]

Re: Desperately Need a Root

When we lived on acreage in the hinterland hills we had rich red volcanic soil and the fruit trees loved it. I used to bring boxes of lemons, limes, mandarins and grapefruit into work just to get rid of them. We then had a sea change and now live in a beach side suburb with crappy sandy soil where everything struggles to grow. Our one lemon tree grows in a large pot and struggles to produce enough lemons a season for Mrs Lagonda's gin and tonic.

The one thing that does grow well around here is cocos palm trees, the bloody things are weeds. We are fed up with the large fronds from next doors trees crashing into our garden and everyone of the 1 millions seeds it drops on our side of the fence germinates as well. They might be a sudden casualty of glyphosate die back!

[NeoMatrix]

Re: Desperately Need a Root

When we lived on acreage in the hinterland hills we had rich red volcanic soil and the fruit trees loved it. I used to bring boxes of lemons, limes, mandarins and grapefruit into work just to get rid of them. We then had a sea change and now live in a beach side suburb with crappy sandy soil where everything struggles to grow. Our one lemon tree grows in a large pot and struggles to produce enough lemons a season for Mrs Lagonda's gin and tonic.

The one thing that does grow well around here is cocos palm trees, the bloody things are weeds. We are fed up with the large fronds from next doors trees crashing into our garden and everyone of the 1 millions seeds it drops on our side of the fence germinates as well. They might be a sudden casualty of glyphosate die back!

There is some productive soil growing areas down around your part of the country, particularly around the inner hinterland Sunshine Coast area. I've had the opportunity as youth to live around the South East for a few years. I spent my youth on a small farm around the Bribie Island area. We grew small crops on about 3-4 acres out of the 70 acres we had available. We mainly grew produce like watermelon, pumpkins etc. The soil around the coastal fringe where we were was not the most productive, we always had to fertilize a lot, which after operating costs,made the market sale of the produce almost pointless. We sometimes sold off the road side to get a better return.

RE: palm fronds.
I have a similar problem with neighbours palms. The fronds fall over the top of my vehicles. I don't mind to much they haven't dent the vehicles yet.