How to Graft Orange Trees

Ever wonder how citrus trees are reproduced? By and large they are grafted. And grafting procedure goes back many many years. On citrus it is highly regulated in most states. So I will tell you this, that if you're going to do it commercially you need to check with your state or county local folks to find out exactly what you have to do to be regulated, to be certified to do it. I am going to show a quick way of how you actually graft it. We use what is called a bud graft by and large in citrus and a bud graft is a simple thing. We take a little bitty cutting from a leaf right off of the bark and then we insert that in a seedling or a sour type of a fruit that gives us good root production and will give us good production of energy to the graft. Now I'm going to cut a T in the bark. O.k., here we go, we're cutting the T in to the bark. In other words we got the bark cut so that it will layer out away from the wood of the inner tree. Now remember that is a seedling. Now I've cut a little bud ahead of time and we're going to slide that in to this T. And we need some tape to go around it. I don't have any right available but it's just simply a tape to hold it in place. Now what has happened here? We have fused this little bud in to a seedling. Now if I were in an actual greenhouse we would take and we would turn this around. Now this is a finished tree that's approximately twelve months old. Remember I showed you the little tip, how it would grow out and then we clip the seedling. Now this is a finished tree that's ready to go in to the ground. Right here you can still see where it was grafted. This is seedling, this is the sweet fruit above it. Now we've put a cane to keep it straight and this little thing has grown in about twelve months to be this quarter inch to three eighths of an inch caliber. This tree is ready to be planted either in the ground or in the pot to grow out larger. There are other types of grafting but I'm just explaining orange or citrus grafting. I am Richard Skinner and I am the owner of Hawkins Corner Nursery in Plant City Florida.