Growing Lemon From Seed

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Reproduction of citrus crops by seeds, cuttings, layering

The spring months of March and April are the most fertile times for the propagation of citrus plants: you can grow your own plant from the seed, and then graft it to it, or get it vegetatively (by cutting or layering). Usually, the first method is to grow a lemon, to which a cultivated lemon, orange, tangerine, and kinkan are grafted at will. But getting tangerine plants from seed is usually not practiced.

You can start planting seeds at any time of the year, but the optimal time is still spring, when growth processes are activated. For this purpose, take fresh seeds from a purchased (non-frozen) lemon, preferably freshly extracted from the fruit (they have good germination and germination energy).

The seeds are preliminarily kept for 20 minutes in a slightly pink solution of potassium permanganate, three pieces are sown in half-liter pots with a soil substrate from a mixture of fertile soil and river sand (in a ratio of 2: 1) to a depth of 2-3 cm, incubated at 18 … 28 ° WITH. Pour with settled warm tap water. The pot is covered with glass or placed in a plastic bag, since the soil should not dry out or be waterlogged.

After 12-15 days at a temperature of 25 … 28 ° C, seed germination begins. When the seeds are kept at a temperature of 18 … 22 ° C, their germination takes up to 4-5 weeks, if it is below 18 ° C, the emergence of sprouts is delayed, even their decay may occur.

Transplanting seedlings at the age of 2-4 leaves is done very carefully, they try to injure the root system less, especially the small roots. Experts believe that there is no need to delay the transplant further: the younger the seedling, the easier it is to transfer the transplant. In order for the seedling to take root successfully, at 2-3 weeks a state of 100% moisture is created, covered with a glass jar, and thorough care is provided.

When good conditions are created, the plant grown from the seed develops quickly, turning into a beautiful tree with a dense crown of numerous leaves. However, the flowering of such a "wild" lemon will have to wait 8-10 years and even more. To accelerate the onset of flowering and fruiting, the plant must be grafted: it is used as a rootstock, a twig (copulation) or a peephole (budding) is taken as a scion from young well-ripened stems of fruiting (preferably productive or well-known varieties) plants.

According to experienced citrus growers, plants grown from seeds and then grafted develop better and bear fruit in indoor conditions, since they have already been adapted to them. As a stock, seedlings aged 1-1.5 years are more often used, in which, at a height of 5-6 cm from the root collar, the thickness of the stem is 5-7 mm. The optimal time for vaccination is the period March - August (active sap flow).

When budding on a stock, the bark should lag well, therefore, 2-3 days before work, it is watered abundantly. A longitudinal incision of the bark with a length of 1.5-2 cm is made along the stem with an occulting knife. A horizontal incision is made above this incision, up to 1 cm long, the general incision of the bark takes the shape of the letter "T". The upper edges of the longitudinal cut are carefully opened with the edge of a knife from top to bottom. Then a bud (eye) is cut from the cutting of a fruiting branch, capturing (above and below the bud) a thin piece of wood 1 cm long. It is inserted from above into a T-shaped cut in the bark and slowly pushed down until it fits snugly into the cut.

So that the peephole adheres well to the stock and water does not get into the incision, the budding site is wrapped with strapping material, performing this operation from bottom to top (while the grafted kidney should not be closed). After the grafting site is tied with electrical tape and neatly coated with garden varnish, a plastic bag moistened from the inside is put on top to create sufficient air humidity under this shelter for better survival of the scion.

The quality of the stock plays an important role in the later life of the formed plant: it affects its development, longevity and yield. When purchasing grafting material for growing in indoor conditions, you need to find out: what sort it is, and if you buy an already grafted plant, you need to ask: on which rootstock it was grafted. The optimal result in terms of plant growth and yield is observed in lemons grafted on lemon. Such plants adapt better to unfavorable conditions during the winter and summer months.

Own-rooted cuttings are often obtained. For grafting, you need a piece of a branch 5-6 mm thick, 8-10 cm long with 3-4 buds and with 2-4 old leaves. When harvesting from the mother plant, the cutting is cut in such a way that its lower cut (cut angle 45 °) is under the bud, and the upper cut is 0.5 cm above the bud. It is believed that cuttings take root on the rootstock in March-April much better than in August-September.

If the leaf blades are large, then they are cut in half to reduce water evaporation. Before planting in a soil substrate for better rooting, cuttings with bases of 3-5 cm are placed in a 0.02% solution of heteroauxin for 12-15 hours. Then the rooting rate of green cuttings increases to 70%, they develop a better root system than untreated ones. Before planting, the lower cut of the cutting can be powdered with crushed charcoal.

If no growth substances are used, the cuttings are simply treated with charcoal and rooted in coarse-grained moistened sand at a depth of 2-3 cm. They are covered with a glass jar or a plastic bag (for 100% moisture content). For 2-2.5 weeks, it is necessary daily (morning and evening) to spray the leaves of the cutting with water until the root system is formed.

The temperature during rooting is maintained at least 20 ° C, and preferably 22 … 25 ° C, since at a lower temperature, the cut of the cutting can rot, at a higher temperature it can shed the leaves, without which there will be no rooting. Such rooted cuttings enter fruiting early, retain all the qualities of the mother plant, but are characterized by a more delicate root system than seed ones. It is easily damaged when feeding with solutions of mineral fertilizers, and with high soil moisture, a disease is more often observed - gommosis.

Owners of self-rooted plants need to be more careful when caring for them. Sometimes it is very simple to obtain such plants: in the spring, a stalk with 3-4 leaves is stuck into the ground with containers with a large lemon, covered with a glass jar and after a month and a half, a seedling with a root system is obtained. Cut lemons bear fruit in the second or third year.

Sometimes lemon is propagated by layering, which makes it possible to immediately get a whole plant. Any branch (it is possible with ovaries or fruits), located near the soil, is bent to the soil and a small incision is made at the point of contact with it. Then pin the branch with a pin and sprinkle the incision with earth. The soil is kept moist, after 1.5-2 months a root system is formed at the incision site and the cuttings can be planted.

Even a preschooler can grow a plant from a seed: it is only necessary for adults to choose the appropriate soil substrate and tell the baby to what depth to stick the lemon seed

1. Do you grow indoor lemon?

   1. Yes
   2. Not
   3. Going to grow

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