Great question! I too would love to hear from experiences... especially as to how large / tall the trees have gotten before bearing fruit (in order to get an average node count). I will assume that the variety and growing conditions can and would have a big effect. - George

I have seedlings but they are still quite young. I know there was an old thread by someone who had a HUGE (like over 8') tall lemon grown from seed. I think it fruited after 10 years. From what I hear, key limes and calamondins fruit much sooner - less than 5 years perhaps? I am not sure about kumquats.

All my citrus except calamondin are from seed, and the oldest one, mandarin, reached two years so far as I remember. Its growing in approximately 5 liter pot under cfl:s. I'm not planning to put it outside for this season.

I bent the leader to encourage more shoot developement successfully, and have pruned the new shoots twice since then. Now it has more than ten branches, but three of those are water suckers that grow like crazy.

Mandarin is about 15 inches long, and the second biggest is a lemon just over 10 inches. It has one main branch and two a bit smaller, without pruning. It's starting to get crazy after re-potting and transfer to 'sort-of-511 mix'.

Others are a lot smaller: Pomelo 4 inches(putting out branches, though, and without pruning!).

Kaffir-lime and Poncifus trifoliata are just a bit smaller as the pomelo.

My small seedlings are: mandarin 'Nadorcott', Kumquat and blood-orange 'Tarocco'.

'Tarocco' and 'Nadorcott' were polyembryonic with two or more sprouts from one seed, and I selected the strongest ones comparing the size of first true leaves.

Surprisingly, the only loss of seedlings I've had was one kumquat a couple of months or so ago. I think it died due to overwatering, its just a guess.

All the seeds, except kaffir lime and poncirus where from store bought fruits.

Lots of love, light and moderate amounts of water and fertilizer, these are my keys to hopefully get then thrive. Fingers crossed, everybody!

I would have to go back and find some early photos to find out how old this calamondin tree is. I planted it from seed and it's in the neighborhood of 12ft tall and has yet to fruit. I'm guessing it's 8-10 years old now.

I am currently experimenting with three different citron varieties grown from seed. My oldest tree is somewhere between 2-3 years (i was given care of it while it was a young 12" seedling and told it was about a year) and the other trees are approx 18 months old.

Obviously none have fruited. Although i have never grown grafted citrus - and therefore have very little, if no understanding as to the differences - two things stand out to me as very different from a lot of what i see described on this forum pertaining to grafted trees:

1) Everyone here seems to fertilize often with large doses of FP. The few times i have tried to use FP on my trees - with less added than i see people hear use - i have had almost immediate and obvious "burn" on my trees, including yellowing tips of leaves among other symptoms. [they are very happy when i use the Lutz citrus tabs in the pots and otherwise leave them alone].

2) the young seedlings are somewhat intolerant of direct heavy sunlight - they seem much less stressed inside the greenhouse during the hotter months and when i have attempted to add supplemental LED lighting during the late fall/early spring i also notice immediate burning of the upper leaves.

Since I have not found any great answers as to why they behave this way, I am led to believe that the above issues are just due to the young age/immaturity of the trees. But that barely even an educated guess.

I know nothing about "node counts" or the height of mature potted citron, but i am certainly hoping for some fruit sooner than 10 years!

Regarding point #!: a) Did you water the trees with plain water before watering with the FP solution? b) Did you pour enough FP solution so that some drained from the bottom of the container?

Regarding point # 2: I have had no problem exposing seedlings to direct sunlight. I expose them to supplemental lighting and then gradually to direct sunlight.

Vladimir,

After watering thoroughly as i always do (just let the hose run for a few minutes per pot) I would then water with a can with the FP mixture and yes usually to the point where it started to come out the bottom.

As for the light, it has been frustrating for me - i have a pretty high tech expensive LED grow light with extremely flexible settings/timers - i can choose from 3 different spectrums or all of them, and choose the intensity for each one separately, but no matter how low i set the light on - even while using light diffusing cloth underneath- it still seemed to scorch the tips of the plants. So the light basically just sits in my shed, oh well.

Well, LEDs should not get physically warm/hot either, so its hard to tell where the problem is..

I have 100w 6500kelvin CFLs for my citruses and other tropicals, they are growing well with this setup.

Sunlight should be stronger than any artificial light-setup, but could it be that your greenhouse glasses absorb the UV radition of the sun almost completely, and the LEDs produce more than what the greenhouse windows allow to get in? That COULD end up with some burns. I cant come up with anything else. Anybody?

OJ, where did you get the information for the time from seed to fruit?

I got a key lime from seed, it took two to three years to start fruiting. it is now about 8 feet tall.

Luciano, did you plant it in the ground or in a pot? And how tall was it when it you first got limes? Im asking because I have one thats about 2 years old now, growing nicely, about 2-3 feet tall and wide. No sign of flowers yet, the anticipation is killing me lol.

I have it in a five gallon pot. In full sun.

Rule of thumb (just my own wild guess): figure 12" to 18" growth per year. So if an orange takes ~10 years to bloom, then 10 x 18" = 180" or 15 feet. Maybe 10 to 15 feet.