Help w/ 12ft orange trees planted from seeds

10 years ago

Hello guys. This is my first post, so bear with me. Anyways I have two 12-13ft orange trees I started from seeds about 15 years ago. They weren't producing any fruit at all until we decided to plant a dwarf 5 gallon (fruiting) orange tree right next to them. Within 2-3 years we noticed small oranges on 1 half of the tree, which spread to the other half the next year, and eventually to the other tree. Like I said, they are roughly 12-13 ft tall now and produce lots of oranges yearly. So I was wondering why the oranges are small, and contain so many seeds? They are definitely getting larger as the years go by, and average around 2-3 inches in diameter now. But, are they ever going to be seedless and/or get to a full mature size? I also should mention that I hardly ever cut the stem suckers. Did I mess up my trees by not cutting the suckers? By the way, if you can deal with the seeds, the oranges are absolutely delicious. And the largest orange we have had was this year, and was the size of a tennis ball! With the exception of failing to remove the stem suckers, I am very proud of these trees that I started when I was just 13 years old. They are now really healthy and beautiful trees. I would really appreciate any help or advice...Thank you community

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Comments (4)

schnell31
Original Author
10 years ago
I will take pictures tomorrow when I have light and attach to this posting...
raisefire
10 years ago
Trees from seeds will take years to produce. The fruit should improve in time. The suckers that get removed are mostly for grafted trees. The rootstock they are grafted to generally produce undesirable fruit and rob energy from the rest of the tree but since your is from seed that wouldn't be an issue. The seeds in your fruit may always be there due to it being grown from seed and not a selected seedless varity that is usually grafted to reproduce the trait. You didn't mention if you fertilize but fertilizing it may help to improve it. There are many topics on here on fertilizing. I'm am amazed that you get edible fruit from your trees. A lot do not produce tasty fruit that are grown from seed. Hopefully someone else will chime in, by no means am I an expert, and can give more or better advice. Otherwise, keep doing what your doing, your trees sound like they're happy.

And get those pictures on here I would enjoy seeing them. :)
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tantanman
10 years ago
Schnell:

I know of two people who have orange trees like you describe. I know a lot more that have planted seed from supermarket oranges that have something else they can not eat.

I have a couple of grafted trees that give small sized oranges. But I wonder if your trees are truly "round oranges" or if they may be mandarin hybrids, like Fairchild, or Sunburst? I have seen a lot of people surprised to find out that Page and Satsumas for example, are not "oranges". If you have some mandarin variety, they may be as big as they can be. If you have some true orange, thinning and fertilizing may increase the size somewhat.

On the time to fruiting from seed, a general rule of thumb is the smaller the fruit the sooner seedling tree bears. But there are big differences in the results you can get. I planted a Rio Red GF in a really good soil with a fantastic mulch, and it fruited in only six years. I planted a Ray Ruby seedling near a giant pecan tree in heavy clay, and it is 13 years old and has not bloomed. Getting them to bear is a function of getting them to outgrow the immature wood. A lady once said she had a Keraji (small mandarin) that was 9 years old that did not bloom. Mine had fruit in four years because I had it in a good raised bed and it was well mulched..

Help w/ 12ft orange trees planted from seeds

Comments (4)

schnell31
Original Author

raisefire

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Help w/ 12ft orange trees planted from seeds

Comments (4)

schnell31Original Author

raisefire

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schnell31
Original Author