Plant-it Hawaii

[Lee M-S]

I have several citrus trees from PIH. The lemons and tangerines are producing lots of fruit on small trees; oranges and grapefruit not producing much of anything on larger trees.

I've read that it takes about 3 years for a grafted Avocado to produce well, and 5-7 years for a seedling. I suspect the same is probably true for other fruits. Of course, since avocado seeds don't produce a plant identical to the parent, it's kind of a gamble whether you'll get a good one. I think I heard that citrus is the same.

[kalakoa]

Yes: both avocado and citrus do not grow "true to seed".

The bigger issue with avocado (which I rarely hear about) is that can become susceptible to an ohia fungus if their root zones intersect, so you want to plant them away from the ohia, and with plenty of drainage.

[Cagary]

quote:

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Originally posted by kalakoa

Yes: both avocado and citrus do not grow "true to seed".

The bigger issue with avocado (which I rarely hear about) is that can become susceptible to an ohia fungus if their root zones intersect, so you want to plant them away from the ohia, and with plenty of drainage.

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"citrus do not grow "true to seed"."

SEEDLING CITRUS TREES

In the past, many individual trees, as well as a
few small commercial plantings of tangerines and
oranges, have been grown from ungrafted seedlings,
particularly in the Puna, Kona, and Pahoa districts
of the island of Hawaii. It is possible to do this because
most citrus cultivars come relatively true from
seed. This can be explained by the fact that citrus
seeds, unlike the seeds of most tree fruits, have the
property of developing several vegetative or nonhybrid
embryos in each seed. Such seeds are known
as "polyembryonic" or "nucellar" seeds, and produce
relatively uniform, true-to-type seedlings. Nucellar
seedlings tend to be more vigorous and thorny
than grafted trees of the same variety, and they
have an additional disadvantage in taking several
years longer to come into bearing. However, if offtype
and weaker-growing seedlings are eliminated
in the nursery, almost all of the remaining seedlings
are dependably true to variety."

FROM : BETTER ROOTSTOCKS FOR CITRUS GROWN IN HAWAII
R. A. Hamilton, C. L. Chia, and P. J. Ito