Interested in Growing Meyer Lemon Trees from Cuttings. Plz Help

15 years ago

Hello Everyone, I'm new to this site so I am not aware of the past messages that solved my question, which im sure has been answered dozens of times. If you could answer here, i would more than appreciate it, but if you had a link to any of the good messages on starting Meyer Lemons from cuttings, start-finish, that would be awesome too!

Well, heres my quick story..

I went to my neighbors house and picked a good sized bag of lemons off of his Meyer Lemon tree, which is huge, probably 30-40 years old. And I decided, hey, why not grow some lemons from the seeds of the fruits i had. So i checked out growing conditions on the web, and planted about ten lemon seeds. Then as i was searching later on, discovered that Meyers were a hybridized variety, so i though, Oh great, im going to have to wait 8 years just to see if im growing the right plant... So i was a little let down. Until I later discovered that Meyers were one of "the easiest" citrus to propagate through cuttings. So i decided to change my plans from growing from seeds, to getting myself some nice sized cuttings (since his tree is so big). BUT, having no tree experience, and a failed experience at growing trees from cuttings in the past. so, CAN ANYONE HELP, PLEASE! I really prefer step-by-step instructions if that is at all possible to ask for.

Some of my questions include:

How large of a cutting, and from where on the tree. And, if grafting is necessary, how do i do that?

Much appreciated!

-Adam

Comments (3)

starloc
15 years ago
I have had good results with cuttings from lemon, about 2 months ago i cut back branches on one of my trees, took all the bits and tryed to root them,
90+% of the lemon cuttings are growing, i have also tried mandarin and calamondin since, none rooted

I used a small plastic frame they sell as a greenhouse..., shelves with a plastic bag over it in reality, it was in the house in a bay window for the sun to heat the air, a piece of tissue paper to shield the sun from the plants

The cuttings were all about a foot tall, i just cut the bottom off each just below a leaf node, left all the leaves on,i dabbed rooting gel on the end and pushed it into a pot of perlite, watered it, then left it in the greenhouse (tent shelf) it was at 25 deg C for about a month , i sprayed the leaves everyday to keep them wet, after a month i looked and they had rooted 2 inch around and new growth was starting

Out of 30 about 28 rooted from the lemon, none from the mandarin or calamondin

The cuttings i used were fairly new growth, it was green color but hard, not brand new soft growth
thenear1send
Original Author
15 years ago
Very cool!

Thanks for responding, I have another question though, what do you think the max size cutting i could root would be? And because of my little knowledge on growing trees from clippings... is it guaranteed that a "tree" will actually grow from the clippings??? Or will it just be a really large branch--non fruit bearing? or whatever. I just don't know xD

Well thanks again for responding!

-Adam
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birdsnblooms
15 years ago
Star, Congrats...that's an interesting way to root cuttings. I'm surprised 10" stems would root.

Adam, I've rooted citrus cuttings but they were 4-5". If you follow Star's lead, and looking to grow standard-tree-shaped citrus, his/her way would be a head start as far as tree shaped style.
The best thing to do is graft. Do you know how this is done?
Seedlings will eventually fruit, but it takes years. 7-14. Grafted trees fruit from 1 yr.
Grafted trees have many advantanges. Less disease, insects, roots, flower/fruit production.
There's grafting info online and books. I don't know if this sites still exists, but try treehelp.com ... Or http://www.treehelp.com/trees/citrus/propagation-by-grafting.asp
I wish you luck...Toni