Growing calamansi tree is very awesome thing. It gives many fruits that can be use to make juices or mix with foods to get a sour taste. In growing this tree you can use seeds, grafting method or marcotting. Any of those method can be useful. But what are the steps on how to marcot calamansi tree?
About Marcotting Calamansi
Calamansi trees can be propagate through marcotting. It means that you can grow more trees with the use of the branches. This technique is a very helpful and great way in growing trees compare to start with the seed. Seed takes time to germinate and to grow before you will see it bears fruit.
How To Marcot Calamansi Tree?
- Prepare Your Materials
There are few materials you need to prepare before marcotting your calamansi tree. These are sharp knife, transparent plastic, soil and some string or thread that will be use to tie the plastic on the branch. The sharp knife is needed so that cutting the skin of the tree branches will be easy.
Try to avoid dull knife because it will be hard to get out the branch skin. Transparent plastic should be use so that when the roots are already grown, you can easily see them. You will know if their are more roots and if they are bigger enough. But colored plastic can be use also. A string or thread should be strong to ties the plastic.
- Pick A Branch
On your tree pick a good branch to use in marcotting. You can use old big branches or smaller one. Old big branches takes long to roots so choose younger, smaller and color brown branches, avoid those too green.
- Remove Branch Skin
After picking, use the knife and make two cuts around the branch. Make a 1 to 2 inch (2.5 to 5 cm) space per cut. The deep of the cut should be just level of branch skin. Take away the skin and you should see it color white.
- Get Some Soil Or Moss
You can use loam soil or mud soil because it doesn’t dry fast or maybe use moss. Either of those materials will be good. Avoid sand soil because it dry so fast and not good soil for marcotting. Let’s say you use mud soil, make it moist and turn it like a ball and put it on the cutted area on the branch. Make sure it surrounds the whole part of the branch.
- Cover With Transparent Plastic
Cover the mud soil with transparent plastic. Use the thread, string or any material to ties it on the branch. Make sure that it is strong enough and it will not fall. If you are using moss or loam soil, you need first to tie the plastic on one end of the branch, then put the soil materials inside the plastic and then tie on other end.
Loam soil and moss is different compare to mud soil so you need do it in different way. When every thing is done, what you need to do is to wait. If you use a smaller and a little bit young branch, it will grow roots around 30 to 45 days while for those older and bigger size branch it will takes around 3 to 5 months to grow roots.
Should you water it? If you are using mud soil watering will be rare or no watering at all. It will be moist inside the plastic for long time but if you see that its too dry because of hot weather you can water it to make it moist. Loam soil and moss dries faster and you need to water it every three to five days. The watering will depends upon if the soil materials are too dry but if they are still moist no need to water them.
- Transplanting
When your branch have grown enough roots, you can start transplanting. Cut the branch on the end part around 0.5-1 inch (1.3 to 2.5 cm) distance from the plastic base. Use saw for cutting to make it easy and prevents shaking the roots. Plant it on the container or maybe directly on the ground but put some protection against too much sunlight for around 2 weeks. Water it to help establish its roots.
Advantage of Marcotting Calamansi Tree
One advantage of marcotting your calamansi tree is you can get fruits easily. The tree can produce flowers and fruits faster and you don’t need to wait for years. Knowing how to marcot calamansi tree is a good thing to know.
Can You Marcot Calamansi?
Yes, you can.
How Long To Marcot Calamansi?
It will takes 30-45 days for smaller branch, and 3 to 5 months for bigger and older one.
When To Cut The Branch?
Cut the branch if they have more and bigger enough size roots.
Those are some informations about how to marcot calamansi tree. Your tree branches will grow roots around 30 to 45 days for smaller size and around 3 to 5 months for bigger and older one.
