Grafed by a non-Jew, planted and cared for by a Jew
Question
Hello, I am looking for information on the permissibility of the below scion/rootstock combinations for planting/maintaining outside of Israel:
- Southern King Pear (scion) / Callery Pear (rootstock)
- Sharanui Mandarin (scion) / Trifoliate Orange (roostock)
- Owari Satsuma (scion) / Trifoliate Orange (roostock)
- Miho Satsuma (scion) / Trifoliate Orange (rootstock)
If any of these are an issue, I would like also a directive on how to treat them. I am a home gardener and planted all of these myself from 3-gallon nursery pots. I did not do the grafting. This is when I mistakenly thought that the only issue on plants that are safek mino (which I assume at least the citrus are) is the grafting, not the transferring from the nursery pot to the ground itself. Do any of these need to be uprooted or can they be maintained? Again, they were all grafted by a non-Jew but planted and are maintained by a Jew outside of Israel.
Answer
Dr. Mordechai Shomron, agronomist
It is permissible to keep taking care of all of them after-the-fact (to say whether it is lechatchilah to graft or plant any of them, I'd have to see the scion and rootstock themselves).
In general (and going forward), there is a dispute whether all citruses are considered one species or not, so a non-Jew should plant grafted citruses unless the scion-rootstock pair are within the same halachic family. But since it's a safek, you would be able to continue to keep and care for the trees.