Citrus propagation is usually carried out by grafting, cuttings, branches and seeds. At home, the most common method of breeding citrus fruits is cuttings - this is the fastest way to get fruiting trees in 3-4 years. Cuttings can bloom earlier, but in order for the fruit to ripen and the plant not die, it must increase a lot of leaf mass. In order to obtain varieties of lemons fully adapted to room culture, you need to remove them from the seed sown in the room and grow at home.
Propagation by seeds
Seeds sown in indoor conditions germinate after 30-40 days. Lemon seedlings do not tolerate picking in a very young state: they develop a relatively long taproot, which is not recommended to pinch when picking. The root root should be cut when the seedlings have 4-5 leaves. If it is not cut, then it does not branch, will grow in length and twist in rings at the bottom of the pot.
If the seeds are sown in boxes, then the root root is cut without taking out the plants, and 10-15 days after that the plant is carefully transplanted into permanent dishes. If the seeds are sown one at a time in a pot, then the seedlings are not transplanted, but the root root is necessarily cut. Rod roots are cut with a sharp and long knife at a depth of 8-10 cm. For this, a knife is introduced into the ground at a distance of 8-10 cm from the seedling at an angle to the ground of 40-45 ° C. The knife must be inserted slightly away from the direction of the seedling, then the axial root must be cut in a circular motion. If there is no certainty that the root is cut, then the operation is repeated by introducing the knife at the same angle, but 2-3 cm closer to the plant.
Plants bred from seeds bear fruit no earlier than years after 8-12 and even later and initially produce a small amount of fruit. But for breeding purposes, growing them from seeds in rooms is necessary.
To speed up fruiting, you can graft a number of seedlings. As a graft, you need to take shoots from fruiting lemons; grafted lemons bear fruit in the 2-3rd year. In terms of adaptability to home conditions, these lemon trees are superior to lemon trees brought from the south and grown in greenhouse conditions.
- Lemon seedlings grown from seeds are entirely new forms of plants. The quality of their fruits depends on the heredity (origin of the seeds) and the conditions for keeping them. If the seedlings grow violently, then the fruiting period is postponed. In this case, pruning is used, but does not worsen the conditions of detention.
- Seedlings that have produced strong blooms and good fruits can be a promising new variety, well adapted to be kept in rooms. Non-water-bearing seedlings should be used as a stock when grafting.
Propagation by cuttings
At home, lemons are propagated mainly by cuttings.
From a normally developed lemon, you can cut the following number of cuttings: at the age of 4-5 years-5 pieces, at the age of 6-7 years - up to 20 pieces, at the age of 8 years and above - up to 30 pieces.
When harvesting cuttings, the top 1-2 sheets are left; if the leaves are too large, they are trimmed to 1/3 the size. The rest of the leaves are removed completely; the lower end of the handle is cut 1/4 cm below the kidney, and the upper one is 1 cm above the kidney. The lower cut is made almost perpendicular to the axis of the handle, the upper cut is at an angle. To prevent decay, the lower cut of the cutting is sprinkled with charcoal.
Cuttings are taken from a healthy and fruiting plant. The stalk should be with 2-3 developed buds and about 10 cm long. It is cut from those branches in which the wood has not yet been coarsened and they can be easily bent. Cuttings of very young shoots are somewhat flattened on both sides and root worse.
The cutting time of lemon and orange is determined by the presence of suitable cuttings and certain temperature conditions. Cuttings can be carried out throughout the year, but the best results come from April cuttings. With spring cutting, the cuttings are taken from the branch of autumn growth, and with summer - from the branch of spring growth.
Cuttings are rooted in pots, in indoor greenhouses, greenhouses. However, rooting can also be carried out in plain water. A glass with cuttings is kept in a well-lit place.
If the cut cuttings cannot be planted immediately, they are kept in water or in a lightly moistened cloth until they are planted.
Rooting takes place under normal conditions within 2-3 weeks. The pot is taken with a diameter of 7-9 cm so that 4-5 cuttings can be planted in it. Above the drainage layer, a small layer (about 1 cm) of moss is placed in the pot, onto which garden land and river sand are poured in equal proportions.
You can pour a layer of river sand into a pot on top of the ground. The soil in the pot is lightly wetted with water. Before planting, the cuttings are immersed with the lower end in a solution of heteroauxin or other growth stimulant (for 8-12 hours). After that, a handle is planted in a specially made hole with a depth of 1.5-2 cm, usually obliquely. The soil in the pot is compacted and watered. To provide cuttings with greater humidity, they are covered with a bag or glass.
- The temperature of the water used for irrigation should be 2-3 ° above room temperature. The pot with the handle is placed in a warm place, at a temperature of 20-25 °, in diffused sunlight.
- To better root the cuttings, the pots are heated. A sign of rooting is the appearance of new leaves and roots. After rooting, young plants are accustomed to room air, for which they raise the shelter first for 2-3 hours, then for 3-4 hours, etc. After 2-3 weeks, the shelter can be completely removed.
- If the cutting was planted in the sand, then after rooting it is transplanted carefully so as not to damage the young roots.
A rooted stalk of lemon or orange quickly grows. Cuttings after their rooting are planted in pots with a diameter of 10-12 cm to the same depth that was during rooting. The earthen mixture consists of 2 parts of sod land, 1 parts of sheet land, 1 parts of completely decomposed greenhouse manure and 0.5 parts of clean river sand.
It is very important when transplanting lemon or orange cuttings not to pinch the ends of the roots, as they contain mycorrhiza. This is a special type of cohabitation of microorganisms of soil and plants, in another way it is called mushroom root. Thin threads of fungi germinate inside and outside the root, through the hyphae of the fungus, the plant receives water and soil nutrients. Therefore, if the roots have grown a lot, they are simply rolled up in a ring at the bottom of the pot.
During the first year, three-time transshipment is carried out - in the spring, in early July and in the second half of August, if possible without destroying the earthen coma.
Propagation by inoculation
The stock is plants obtained from seeds, the stock is cultivated varieties of lemon, which are grafted for fruiting lemon trees of a certain variety. As a rootstock, you should avoid taking wild three-leaf lemon (trifoliate), since lemon grafted on trifoliate drops leaves in room conditions in winter, trifoliate is suitable only for rootstock of plants that will winter in the cold.
For room culture, evergreen stock is taken, adapted to room conditions. It can be lemon, orange or grapefruit, their seed grown, from the fruit eaten. Any citrus fruits are suitable, except, perhaps, tangerine. Mandarin is considered the worst stock, almost does not take root on it. Let's just say that one vaccination out of 20-30 (i.e. very rarely) succeeds in tangerine. In addition, the tangerine rootstock is too weak, only suitable for citrofortunella. The rootstock is grown to size when the trunk reaches a minimum of 7 mm in diameter. Sometimes plants reach this size at the age of 1.5 years, sometimes about 2-2.5.
Vaccinations can be bought in specialized nurseries, which are probably only in large cities, or cut cuttings from someone from friends or acquaintances from a fruiting tree.
Perhaps it is easier to buy an already fruiting tree, but it is always interesting to tinker with vaccinations, watching how branches of different trees or shrubs grow together. There are important points in propagation by vaccination:
- carry out vaccination only in spring, preferably until May, when there is intensive growth and sap flow
- vaccinate only with clean tools, using only healthy graft cuttings
- do not cut the cut point, but cut off in one even motion in
- the graft and stock, it is necessary to connect the cambial layers as accurately as possible, so the diameters of the cut are approximately the same (+/- 1 mm)
- as tightly as possible, wrap the connection point with soft electrical tape, or for example, plumbing tape
- the graft must be in high humidity conditions (wrap a bag or film under the vaccination site, wind a wet cotton wool or moss sphagnum around the trunk, fix the bag so that the graft is inside.
Propagation by branches
Reproduction with branches consists in the fact that on a plant with good fruiting, the most developed annual twig 20-25 cm long, 0.4-0.6 cm thick is selected. At a distance of 10-12 cm from the lower edge of this twig, two annular incisions are made with a sharp knife at a distance of 0.8-1.2 cm from each other. The incised bark is removed with a ring. All leaves are cut 5 cm above and below this place.
Cut a lightweight and plastic pot with a diameter of 8-10 cm in half so that the cut passes through the hole in its bottom. The sawed pot is tied to a twig and to a special stand so that the place of cutting the bark is in the center of the pot. After that, the halves of the pot are tied and filled with well-washed coarse sand, or calcined river sand, or well-steamed moss. Sand or moss should be moist all the time. Watering is carried out with warm water. By the way, instead of a pot, you can use a transparent plastic cup or just cling film.
After 3-4 weeks, the twig will grow its roots, but, without a nutrient medium, they can die. Therefore, they are given fertilizer dressing.
1.5-2.5 months after the start of the branch, you can already cut off the branch and put it in a pot with a lump with a diameter of 12-15 cm. The cut is sprinkled with coal dust. When planting, the root neck should not be immersed in the ground for more than 1-1.5 cm. After planting, the pot with a branch for 10-15 days is placed in a shaded place and sprayed daily.