[conspire] Happy news

[paulz at ieee.org]

 Rick references UCR.  UC Riverside maintains more than 1000 varieties of citrus trees.The "catalog" is at https://citrusvariety.ucr.edu/
They offer bud wood for researchers.  They supply commercial growers with materials to raise trees.  They also offer budwood to individuals who want to graft onto their own trees.

Below are links to 3 Youtube videos.  There are many more.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adkhSOOTjMg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTDoW-NsJTE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w051zyackM
Although there are special tools, you can use any knife provided it  is clean and sharp.  Did I say sharp?  Did I say sterile?

Most people use rubber strips to hold the graft together.   I was taught to graft stone fruit using 3M #33 electrical tape.  This tape is superior to almost every kind of electrical tape.  It stretches a bit when cold, doesn't stretch too much when hot.  Most hardware stores stock 33.  It stretches a bit as trees grow.  I typically leave it for a year before peeling off.

The next thing you need is parafilm.  wax sheets to wrap and seal the graft so it doesn't dry out.  If there was a CABAL, I could bring some, not this month...
After that use white paper or Al foil loosely wrapped to reflect sun.
And patience.  Sometimes it is obvious that a graft has failed because it is dark or black and dried out.  Sometimes a bud "takes", but the tree just doesn't decide to grow that bud for a months or even years.
I've grafted a lot of deciduous fruit trees.  May 70% success rate.  I've only tried citrus a few times with maybe 40% success.  That included two grafts made in September that didn't start growing until spring.   But, if you don't try the success rate will be 0%.


    On Friday, May 1, 2020, 12:58:11 PM PDT, Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:  
 
 Quoting Paul Zander (paulz at ieee.org):

> The conversation caused me to pay attention to my tree.  It had one
> fruit last year and one earlier this year.  Over the course of the
> last year, I selectively thinned out the lemon which was shading its
> small neighbor.  Now the calamondin has a fair number of blossoms and
> many new shoots.  

Glad to hear it.

> I hope Rick's trees are happy.

I lost one small lemon tree in a big ceramic pot, over the past year, 
strictly through inattention:  There's a citrus 'dell' behind the hedge,
and I failed to look after the needs of some of the potted trees back
there.  I notice that, for reasons unclear to me, the soil in pots
appears to compress or wash out or something, such that in any event the
plant sinks in the pot as the apparent depth of soil between the surface
and the bottom of the pot decreases.  This lemon sank until it had only 
about 50 cm of soil height, and died.  I should have noticed the problem
earlier and repotted it.

Nearby, I'd seen a rangpur lime tree and a tangerine tree in similar
distress, repotted them, and they recovered -- but I failed to act in
time to save the lemon.

As to my troubled calamansi / calamondin, after the graft stock
recovered for a while, dammit, the graft died completely, so what
remains is healthy non-calamondin rootstock.  I've just now ordered six
calamondin budstock cuttings from Citrus Clonal Protection Program at UC
Riverside (your kind recommendation) -- just in time for the May 5th
cutting and shipment.


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