One of the aftercare to give to newly grafted or budded citrus trees is to remove the rootstock sucker grow from the bottom and sides of the citrus tree. After grafting on your citrus rootstock and the scion is completely healed, you will notice the growth of some side shoots or rootstock suckers. Removing the new growths from the stem is important to enable the grafted scion to grow and develop healthy leaves and stems.
Steps To Take In Removing The Sucker Growing From The Rootstocks
The first step is to identify the suckers growing from the rootstocks. These are all the new growths coming out from the rootstock tree.
After identifying them break off the small branches from the stem using your hand. Do it gently to avoid damaging the stem. If there are suckers that have grown very big in the situation you cannot remove them using your hands. To remove the big suckers you have to prune them off with your pruning scissors.
After you have successfully removed the rootstock suckers or side shoots from the rootstock. Now spray a mixture of insecticide and fungicide on the grafted tree or young seeding to prevent infectious diseases from entering and killing the grafted tree.
Why You Should Remove The Rootstock Suckers?
There are many reasons for removing the side growths or the rootstock suckers from a citrus tree. Here’s why you should remove the rootstock suckers from the young seedling:
- Removing the side growths from the young grafted seedling helps to activate the growth of the grafted scions.
- By allowing the suckers to grow, they will eventually outgrow the grafted scion and might kill the grafted scion.
- It helps to reduce the grafted scions to grow faster and stronger.
- The grafted scion will concentrate all the nutrients from the tree to grow well.
By always removing the rootstock suckers your citrus tree will grow very strong and healthy. It will help the nutrients coming from the tree to be concentrated on the scion and help the tree grow very fast.
