How to Pick a Good Lemon Sapling

Lemon is an exotic citrus plant that is used in the CIS countries only as a room or office decoration. Large green lemon leaves delight exotic lovers. A sprout grown from a seed will reach enormous sizes in five years, but no fruit will appear on it. Even if you fertilize such a plant well, it will not bear fruit until after ten years. This is due to the way citrus fruits are eaten.

Citrus fruits, due to their special structure, can live up to a hundred years in the presence of the necessary amount of moisture and sunlight. Nutrients and trace elements accumulate in the deciduous leaves of a tree or bush and, if necessary, go back to the roots. This way of nutrition allows citrus plants to store and save moisture, nitrogen and magnesium, which give strength for the growth of new shoots and fruits in the summer.

All nutrients are constantly circulating inside the lemon. The bush will begin to bear the first fruits when all the leaf plates of the bush are filled with the necessary trace elements. Given that a plant from a seed gives new shoots every year, the fruiting period will not come earlier than in ten years. In order not to wait so long for fruiting, you need to choose a high-quality lemon sapling grafted onto the stock.

Leaf color

When buying an indoor lemon, you should pay attention to the color of the plant. All citrus leaf plates should be uniform green. Depending on the variety of lemon, the tips of the leaves may have bright yellow spots. The edging of the leaf can also be yellow.

If lemon leaves are covered with dull yellow spots or have an uneven color, then it is better not to purchase such seedlings. They were standing in a place that is too sunny, which reduces the likelihood of fruiting, or were affected by a fungal disease.

Graft

A quality lemon sapling should be three years old. The cultivar must be grafted onto wild or other citrus stock. Examine the plant carefully when buying, if there are no signs of vaccination, the lemon will not bear fruit.

The grafted seedling must be formed. In nature, lemon is a bush plant, but people are very fond of forming a tree from its crown. The graft stamp for the plant on the windowsill should be at a height of 10 cm. The graft stamp for the floor plant may be higher.

Root system

The lemon seedling should be in a tight container. Due to the way it is fed, the lemon will not bear fruit until it forms a dense earthen ball. When buying, the root system of the plant must be covered with soil.