The Fruit On My Friends Lemon Tree Are Defective~ See Pictures.

The Neighbors are asking why the lemon tree started growing alien looking fruit. Is it diseased? Radiation, Fracking, Trump, GMO exposure?

Well, the answer is none of the above, the tree was modified by what is called grafting. The variety added is called Buddhas hand citron.Some uses are listed here.

Grafting is the technique where you attach a cutting of one plant to another. The cutting will grow to be like the original plant it came from. The plants must be from the same type to be compatible. Apples to apples, citrus to citrus, roses to roses, stone fruit to stone fruit,avocados to avocados. For your information, there are over 120 varieties of avocados that will grow in Orange county, and over 600 varieties of citrus. Many of these are far superior to the common flavor's you see in stores. You can even graft some succulents to get strange plants.

Grafting is not a new process. Almost all fruit trees purchased are grafted. If you plant a seed of a fruit you like you usually do not get what you desired as it will be the same, typically with lower fruit production and low quality. That is where grafting comes in. A tree is grown, a cutting of a variety desired is attached now you have the variety desired. This also works on trees that are no longer desired. A common tree is the lemon tree. A lemon tree produces fruit year round. Eventually some owners get tires of the fruit. Two options

1:) Remove the tree an plant a new one. This means the new tree will not produce fruit as it now has to establish a root base plus grow.

2:) Cut back the existing tree and attach some grafts of desired fruit variety's. You can have multiple variety's on the same tree making more efficient use of space and more varying fruiting cycles.

There is no real mystery of grating it has been done at least before 1400 BC. It is basically attaching a small cutting to a plant, growing that from there.

You can also to what is called air layering with some plants . You attach a plastic bag with soil around a tree branch in a couple of months the branch grows roots. you cut off the branch and plant in ground. Magic.

In one month January , 18th 7:00pm to 9:00pm At the Orange County Fair Grounds Silo building The California Rare Fruit Growers will host a large FREE demonstration on grafting of plants. More info at www.ocfruit.com newsletters section December 2017. There will be multiple tables setup showing how to do grafting. Each table will have one demonstrator with 1 to 6 people like you watching how done and asking questions. The demonstrators have grafted thousands of fruit trees. So they can answer most questions you may have.

On the following Saturday MORNING 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM is the FREE Scion wood exchange. the small cutting used when grafting is called a Scion. Volunteers bring many varieties of fruit tree cuttings. People come from as far as Santa Barbara and San Diego. So get there early for best selection probably before 9:00 am. Also do not take more than you can use there are others attending.

Article Content information assisted by Frank Wagoner of Lake Forest. His property contains 17 citrus trees containing 46 varieties between them , 3 apple trees, 3 avocado trees, one Cherimoya tree( soon to be grafted) , 7 variety's of Dragon Fruit, 8 varieties of Grapes, 8 blue berry plants. and raised vegetable bed planters that took 23 yards of soil to fill . That is about the amount to fill 23 pickup truck loads. His typical water usage does not exceed baseline. He says this event is not one to miss. You can look on youtube but time consuming to ask questions and difficult to see in video.