(MARK) This is the red grapefruit that's in desperate need of some pruning.
I actually planted these trees 20 years ago
which is showing my age and they haven't been pruned since
so they're really looking quite tatty now.
You can see all this dead wood inside...
the overall leaf canopy is a lot reduced and there's heaps of fruit...
but they're all small and not really that good.
So it really needs a good hard prune just to get it rejuvenated and growing again.
(COSTA) Now as small as this fruit is we don't want to waste it.
Yeah, let's pick it.
So the process we're going to apply to this
grapefruit is what we call a skeleton prune. The first task is to get rid of these dead
branches so that we can start to see what that skeleton shape is all about
What's nice about this stage is that we can start to finesse the final shape.
We can certainly see what we're doing and this branch here with all these ugly knobs at the end
I'd actually take it back harder here. - Yep
...just to give it that nice open shape.
Okay, so this bit here needs to go
but the thing to remember is you don't need a chainsaw to do this task
a good sharp pruning saw
is more than capable of doing everything we've just done.
What I'm doing here is just putting an undercut
so that when this piece breaks off it won't rip the bark down there if it's still connected
and then over here...
get started
So you can still definitely tackle a job like this
without a chainsaw
Perfect cut
Well, it's looking like a pretty drastic makeover
but I'm happy with this shape.
Yeah I certainly am too
but we'll notice there is a bit of White Louse Scale
these little white pinheads
now the sunlight penetrating through here now should clean that up,
but you've got to be careful of this bark
so that's why we always do this in late winter or early spring
and that way we'll get all new growth on here before that
hot baking summer sun because we don't want to split this bark from that sunburn.
I've done this on trees where people have come home
and literally almost threatened not to pay me
because they've felt like I've just hacked their tree
but then, 18 months later, they're getting new fresh vibrant juicy citrus again.
It is pretty full on and we have gone very drastic
but to be honest the harder you cut it back the better they come back.
This is a mandarin we did two years ago
And I think we actually even cut this one back harder than what we did the grapefruit
and it's just grown absolutely beautifully.
The other mandarin tree just down here that was pruned last year
and you can see we pruned it quite hard and it's
come back with new growth
but unfortunately, no fruit because it's put all its energy and nutrients
into the growth of the tree for that first year.
Whereas this one, it was pruned the year before
and you can see now, look at the amount of fruit it's producing.
So what you need to do is trust the process.
From skeleton prune today
to a healthy fruit bearing tree within two seasons.
Mark you grow quite a variety of citrus. Are they all grafted?
I don't think there's actually any other way to grow a citrus tree.
There's a few people trying to grow cuttings, but really the only way to grow them is by grafting them.
Basically, it'll produce a lot stronger tree, a lot more pest and disease resistant.
It'll have a tree that fruits a lot quicker...
So, where do you begin the process?
It actually takes us three years to grow a citrus tree from the root stock all the way through to the saleable product.
So this is the Flying Dragon root stock that we use.
We grow it from seed and this is actually already twelve months old.
We then plant them into individual bags out in the paddock.
So are you ready to graft onto this now?
In theory that's a perfect one to graft,
but unfortunately at this time of year, it's not actively growing and to graft properly
you really need that active growth so the bark slips.
So we'll do it on this tree here to give an example.
We actually need some bud wood, or some buds to put onto the root stock.
Basically, it's new growth and you can cut it off like that
and each one of these I can turn into a citrus tree.
So I'll take the leaf petiole and we'll cut a little bud.
A whole lemon tree will come from that little bud.
Wow!
So you need a nice clean part of the trunk and what we do is called a 'T Bud'
So it's simple - up and across to make your T
Then I've got a special budding knife
I turn over to the bark lifter
and I run it up and I just open the bark up and then that little bud that I cut before
simply slips down in the pocket.
Ahh
And we cut the tail off and look at that.
We can't get that wet or let any moisture in so we use a special budding tape,
which is actually really nice and
flexible
And we wrap that up
all nice and tight
And so we then leave that and months later we come back
and if that bud's alive then it's green and we're successful.
So as you can see this bud has taken and it's already started to shoot away.
At that point in time, we get some secateurs and cut the root stock off, like so.
And then that way, that forces all the growth into the new bud to form your tree.
As it continues to grow,
we obviously stake it and when it gets to the top of the stake
we prune the top and it starts to form a lovely shape.
and back here you can see back when it was grafted
probably about a year ago.
So effectively, you've bought together the benefits of the wild mongrel root stock
to get the benefits of both plants...
in a sense it's the perfect marriage.
Oh exactly.
And in this case, it's actually a dwarf root stock
So it'll keep this tree nice and small, but still produce really good big fruit.