Help me germinate my citrus seeds!

May 9, 2007 5:00 PM

I have some citrus seeds that did not originate from a genetically modified/selected crop of trees that I would like to germinate and hopefully see fruit one day. They were picked out of fruit approximately 3 weeks ago. Whats the best way to go about this?

I have some citrus seeds that did not originate from a genetically modified/selected crop of trees that I would like to germinate and hopefully see fruit one day. They were picked out of fruit approximately 3 weeks ago. Whats the best way to go about this?

there are some good articles all over the internet for example: here, here and here. But I am after more success stories in a way that only MeFi can provide.

posted by OzMoges to home & garden (18 comments total)

I can't help you a huge amount, but I should warn you that most citrus is grown on root stock. That is, they germinate one variety of the plant that produces fruit that are good to eat, and they germinate another variety that is selected for having good root qualities, and they graft the "fruiting" plant onto the "rooting" plant so they get the best of both worlds.

If you try growing the "fruit" plant from seed itself, it may perform poorly.

If you try growing the "root" plant from seed, it will probably produce very poor quality fruit.

I see that one of your links mentions this very point - be prepared for a long wait for fruit, and lots of tender love and care to keep the tree healthy.
posted by Jimbob at 5:12 PM on May 9, 2007

I can tell you that they were not produced in the normal method of grafting. They were in fact planted from seed a very long time ago and are occurring naturally.
posted by OzMoges at 5:36 PM on May 9, 2007

I did this with a few lychee seeds. Basically what I did was eat the fruit, rinse off the seeds and shove them into a pot of moistened dirt. A little while later I had my plants. I planted about 6 seeds, 3-4 germinated and I wound up with two plants, only one of which I still have. I won't lie to you, it's not doing that great. It's not dead but it's not thriving. It never has. I don't know if it's cuz I'm sucky with plants (my other plants are fine), if it's because the seed came from fruit that I got at the grocery store (rumour has it they irradiate the fruit to kill pests - this could cause DNA damage that would negatively affect a germinating seed) or because lychees are hard to grow (are they?).
posted by LunaticFringe at 5:37 PM on May 9, 2007

...and prepare for a potentially very big tree. Most backyard-citrus rootstocks are purposely dwarf or semi-dwarf, and those trees can still get up to 20 feet tall. A seed from the fruiting part of the tree, with no special grafted rootstock at all, could get even bigger.

(Note: you can get fabulous mail-order super-dwarf citrus plants from 4 Winds Growers -- they're super-small and can stay in a container for a long time. I ordered clementine and orange trees from them last year and was very pleased. Fruit size was normal.)
posted by Asparagirl at 5:39 PM on May 9, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

My mom has done this with lemons on several occasions. As far as I know, she just planted the seeds in pots then eventually put the tree in the ground. Of course, she's in zone 9, where you won't have as many problems with chills. I'm just slightly north and I kill citrus on a regular basis.
posted by Gilbert at 5:51 PM on May 9, 2007

Also, many fruit trees are cloned (cuttings from an existing good fruiter are grafted onto seed-grown rootstock) precisely because there's so much variability in seed-grown trees.

You could have a bunch of seeds from the best fruit you've ever eaten, and germinate them all, and you'd get a bunch of quite individual trees - quite possibly without a decent fruiter in the lot. Or you might grow the most spectacular new variety out of the seed from a crappy piece of fruit. It's a lottery.

Its especially a lottery with citrus. Basically, there doesn't exist a citrus tree with edible fruit that hasn't been fiddled with by humans at some point in its ancestry.

If you're seriously interested in getting good fruit from seed-grown trees, the general method is to germinate a lot of seeds, and establish a lot of trees, and then get rid of the duds. Growing them up in big pots is a pretty good way.

By the time you've been doing that for a while, you'll know how. So just start!
posted by flabdablet at 6:32 PM on May 9, 2007

If you're seriously interested in getting good fruit from seed-grown trees, the general method is to germinate a lot of seeds, and establish a lot of trees, and then get rid of the duds.

Interestingly, this would violate OzMoges's apparently concern about plants that have been "selected" - OzMoges would be doing his own "selecting"...well, if he went on to plant a second generation of seeds, anyway.

Strength in numbers is the key though; get as many seeds growing as you can, so you have insurance as individuals don't make it.
posted by Jimbob at 6:54 PM on May 9, 2007

I guess if he only wants to "see fruit" - as opposed to "enjoy eating fruit" - then selection might not be warranted :-)
posted by flabdablet at 7:47 PM on May 9, 2007

touche..!
posted by OzMoges at 7:54 PM on May 9, 2007

On the size of the pot - I was thinking of starting small with a warmer of some description undernearth (a USB cup warmer would be perfect I thought.. as nerdy as that sounds) and then transplanting into something bigger a bit later when they have all popped up.

Should i do that and risk the transplant shock on the plant or start in a big pot and leave it?

Also, on the type of soil, as with all forums, I have had conflicting reports on the best soil. Some say terracotta pot potting mix, some say cactus mix or orchard mix. Does anyone have a killer mix that they'd like to share?
posted by OzMoges at 7:56 PM on May 9, 2007

I was thinking of starting small with a warmer of some description undernearth (a USB cup warmer would be perfect I thought.. as nerdy as that sounds) and then transplanting into something bigger a bit later when they have all popped up.

A better way to go would be a greenhouse, to keep the humidity high, but that goes for most seeds. Transplant shock shouldn't be a problem if you're patient, and let the plant really grow to fill it's seedling tray / smaller pot first. Don't move it unless it's got a good healthy root system.

Where abouts are you, OzMoges? What sort of climate? (Tropical, Temperate, Mediterranean, Arid?)
posted by Jimbob at 8:31 PM on May 9, 2007

(Oh and by "greenhouse", I mean a seedling tray with a bit of clear plastic over the top to keep warmth and moisture inside...)
posted by Jimbob at 8:33 PM on May 9, 2007

I live in melbourne, Australia and we are heading into winter here (which will be chilly). its a pretty similar climate to Northern Italy, say Milan?

With a mini-greenhouse in place, would i need under-tray heating?
posted by OzMoges at 8:36 PM on May 9, 2007

No, a mini-greenhouse somewhere sunny should be fine. You mainly want to prevent the frost killing the leaves, you shouldn't get conditions in Melbourne that would freeze roots in the soil.
posted by Jimbob at 8:48 PM on May 9, 2007

Definitely not.
posted by OzMoges at 8:50 PM on May 9, 2007

Random stuff I know about our lemon tree:

- My grandmother bought it, grown, from a catalog, apparently they do not sell this variety any more. She bought it a couple (3-4?) years ago.
- We are in a zone 6b or 7a, and our lemon tree lives outside in its pot during the summer, and inside in its pot during the winter.
- It is quite small, around 4 feet tall, and about the same in width and breadth (basically spherical), and the branches are very slender. The pot it's in is one of those moderately sized terra cotta pots.
- It hasn't grown much, if at all, since we got it.
- It does, however, flower and put out fruit every year! The flowers smell absolutely wonderful, a bit like honeysuckle but so much better.. mmm!
- No one knows what the fruit tastes like, because no one wants to just use one, but when special events roll around no one remembers to use one.
- Usually it blooms profusely but doesn't make that much fruit, but the fruit it does make looks nice and healthy.
- One year it made a LOT of fruit (20+ pieces, really quite shocking to see on such a tiny tree).
- Deer will taste lemons.
- They don't like lemon, however.
- But they will try another lemon, just in case the first one was a lemon....

- Owning a lemon tree is fantastic and wonderful (especially if you have a gardener in the house who takes care of it), even if you never eat the fruit.

P.S. What kind of citrus seeds anyway? I mean, you were eating the fruit, right? So you can at least say "some kind of orange" or "definitely not a lemon" or "maybe a lime"..?
posted by anaelith at 9:09 PM on May 9, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Aaah yes, I left that detail out. I have about 20 seeds of a particular variety of Blood Orange, some large lemon seeds and some Navel Orange seeds.

I cant wait for fruit from the blood orange seeds - im hooked on those bad boys!
posted by OzMoges at 9:13 PM on May 9, 2007

This link from Sunkist is easy to read and informative.

Sadly, you don't know what those seeds are going to sprout into. Before an orange is a fruit, it was a flower. And in order to form seeds, that flower had to be pollinated. Now if the bee that crawled into that blood orange flower had only been in other genetically identical blood orange flowers that day, you have a pretty good chance of getting a blood orange tree similar to the one that grew the fruit you ate. But if the bee had been buzzing around in a Valencia orchard just before he entered that blood orange flower, the cross-pollination will produce a hybrid. The tree will make a blood orange - the tree decides that - but the seed inside of it will not be true blood orange seed.

Fact is, you probably don't know for sure where that bee was, so you don't know what kind of seeds you have. I see that you have blood orange seeds, lemon seeds and navel orange seeds: if those trees are anywhere near each other, I mean less than a mile apart, you've probably got hybrid seed. Bees do fly around to visit different flowers, you know.

(It just occurred to me that I am telling you about the birds and the bees. Well, onward.)

If you eat a blood orange and want to have a tree that makes blood oranges just like it, the right thing to do is to plant a rootstock, and graft part of the original blood orange's tree onto it. This is not as hard as it sounds; you can learn to do it out of a book. While some folks grow rootstock from seed, the nice thing about rootstock is that you can buy a mature one from your local nursery, drop it in the ground, and just get to grafting. This is a decent link with a skeleton outline of the basic steps.

It's also worth knowing that you have quite a wait ahead of you. In general citrus trees don't bear for 3 to 5 years after you've got them started. This is another reason to prefer grafting: no one wants to plant a seed they got out of a blood orange, wait 5 years, and then discover that the they grew a tree that bears an inedible hybrid fruit that's as small as a mandarin, as bitter as a citron, and doesn't even have pink flesh. Sort of a waste of everyone's time and resources. When you graft a bud or a shield scion onto a rootstock, you're still looking at a 3-5 year wait, but you know what you're going to be getting at the end of that time.
posted by ikkyu2 at 12:55 AM on May 10, 2007