Happy Father's Day in those countries that celebrate or feast the progenitors of the human species, my sincere congratulations. Today I bring you a fresh content precisely about reproduction and propagation but not in humans, but in plants by asexual and sexual methods.
▶ The most widely used propagation method in the world to propagate citrus is grafting; an asexual (vegetative) method, which offers comparative advantages over the sexual method, by means of seeds.
▶ Credits: wikihow – [Image of Public Domain]
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Grafting is nothing more than the art of joining vegetative parts of different plants, generally of the same species, in such a way that they unite and continue their growth as a single plant.
The part that will constitute the canopy is called the graft and the lower part is called the rootstock. To obtain citrus material in optimal conditions for planting, the seeds of the selected rootstock must be germinated in rooting beds for 3 months.
Once the seedlings reach a size of 15 centimeters, they are transplanted into bags with a capacity of 5 kilos of substrate, where after 4 months of agronomic management such as fertilization, control of pests, diseases and weeds, pruning, and irrigation. Among other tasks, they reach an optimal development for grafting.
Once the tree is grafted, it takes about 4 months to be in conditions to be planted in the final site, this material obtained will have the same characteristics of the rootstock or plant parent.
NOTE: Reference material.