[conspire] Frankensteining a citrus

[Paul Zander]

I just realized that we might have a "name" confusion. 

 You have been talking about calamansi.  

I was reviewing the things I have growing.  One is a calamondin.  The description also says Kalamansi; Philippine lime.  I think this is the same thing.
http://www.citrusvariety.ucr.edu/citrus/calamondin.html

My "tree" has been in the ground for a number of years and has been literally over-shadowed by trees on either side.  I have only had a few fruit. They are the size of large marbles.  You can just put them in your mouth and eat the whole thing.  Actually I had one last week.  Yum. Now I understand why you want one of these trees.  I'm going to have to "talk" to mine to encourage it to fruit.

Unfortunately there is a very serious disease of citrus: citrus greening disease or HLB after the Chinese name.  Wikipedia has a good description:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citrus_greening_disease  The disease has a long period of time when it shows no symptoms but can be spreading infection to other trees.  It has devastated the citrus industry in Florida.  CA has some very strict quarantine rules to prevent the spread of the disease.   Here, citrus trees are a big industry and many folks have citrus at their homes.  We absolutely don't want HLB to get established.

The only permitted ways to get citrus tree in CA is to buy it from a commercial nursery that has had grow the trees in special screened enclosures and do many other things.   The only approved way to get budwood is through a special program with UC Riverside.  They go to great extremes to prevent their plants from being infected.

So if you want a calamondin or kalamansi or calamansi buy the one at OSH, plant it in a sunny place and talk to it.



      From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
 To: conspire at linuxmafia.com 
 Sent: Sunday, August 26, 2018 2:18 PM
 Subject: [conspire] Frankensteining a citrus (was: Risks of automation)
  
Quoting Paul Zander (paulz at ieee.org):

> From fruit growers email:
> 
> If you can find a citrus already grafted by a nursery at an acceptable
> price, then buy it.  
> 
> That said, I am hoping to graft some less common varieties that a
> recommended by home growers.  If all goes to plan, around the time of
> the next CABAL, I should have some buds of mandarins and pommelos.  If
> you want an "experiment" leave the newly purchased calamansi in its
> pot.  We can attempt grafting to the established root stock. If the
> graft takes, you can look for a different spot for the calamansi,
> maybe somewhere with more sun?

Yes, I'll be delighted to accept your kind offer.  If you feel like
arriving before 4pm on Saturday, Sept. 8th, we can sod around doing some
plant-hacking.  (I've never done grafting, so it'd be more like me as
Igor to your Dr. Frankenstein.)

To catch up those not present yesterday:  One of the things we did was
walk down and look closely at the stricken calamansi tree.  Paul pointed
out the existing graft, which (sadly) is _above_ where the brand-new
shoot is.  He says its common for citrus trees to have a high-up graft
like that (5-6" off the ground), unlike what's generally the case.
_So_, the shoot is root stock, not calamansi -- and we're back to my
earlier conclusion that the calamansi itself is a goner.  Paul's advice
at the time was to just dig up the rootstock and start over.  The above
amounts to Paul's 'take 2' thoughts.

Cheryl's present opinion is that we should see what sort of citrus the
rootstock would become.  This would probably take a few years.  IMO,
this would be a poor bet.  We have absolutely no idea what of
innumerable citrus species this is, and I have low confidence of it
turning out to be desirable.

Another is what you say, reusing the robust rootstock for a bud-grafted
scion, taken from either the calamansi tree currently on sale at OSH in
Redwood City or one of my existing citrus trees.  So, yay, mandarins and
pomelos, then.

I'm undecided about whether to buy that new calamansi tree, but I'll do
a site survey before deciding.


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