From a bitter orange to a sweet orange

Grafting or graftage is a horticultural technique whereby tissues of plants are joined so as to continue their growth together.

On our piece of land we have many fruit trees and amongst them were two bitter orange trees and a very small orange tree. We don’t eat the bitter oranges nor do we make jam or marmelade of them. We asked Yorgos Panajoteras who is an expert in grafting to help us turn these trees around into sweet oranges. June is the time to do something about it for this type of trees. There are other times during the year when you tend to other type of trees.

The small orange tree was trimmed first because all the power of the tree should go to the new branches. This small tree had no room and energy to produce oranges anymore. Now it will, we hope.

The other two trees were trimmed too. The branches that were being treated, they were being cut even, incisions were made and the special cut branches (oranges in our case) were inserted on the stem.

The branched that are attached on the root are encircled by tape to attach them well until they have grown into the root and the tape can be cut. On the exposed root an antiseptic mouse is placed. In the old days mud and a stone were placed.

Thank you Yorgos for helping us out and hopefully in a couple of years we will have oranges again!!