Minneola definitely does need a cross-pollenizer. Without, it will bear very few fruit. Almost any other variety other than 'Orlando' will work, and grapefruit probably works best.

My plant has been blooming the last 2 weeks. I have been spraying with gibberellic acid and I am seeing a lot of early, small fruit- hopefully it will work.
Kyle

The problem with gibberellin on 'Minneola', at least under Florida conditions, is that it makes big, puffy, lumpy, green fruit that are not at all attractive. So, while we do use GA in lieu of cross-pollination on Sunburst, Orlando, and others, we never use it on Minneola.

Thanks- I did not know that.
I am in Colorado and all my citrus are in containers.
It will be interesting to see if that makes a difference.
Kyle

Mineola does not need a cross polinator.
Mine produces loads of fruit and blooms when no other cirtus in the area are blooming.

Orchidguy, you must have neighbors with citrus. Minneola is infamous, notorious, for being among the most extremely self-incompatible of all citrus varieties. It makes hardly any fruit unless cross-pollinated. But in a home planting, it may be getting pollen from down the street or around the block. Commercially, it is always planted with a cross-pollenizer at least every 3rd row in the grove, or we get no fruit.

I vote Honeybells need cross-pollination.

As noted in the link listed below :

Minneola is not strongly self-fruitful and low yields will be experienced if suitable pollenizers are not supplied in close proximity and numbers.

Here is a link that might be useful: Minneola Tangelo

Hello all,

I have ordered a Minneola but have not received it yet. What is the best tree to purchase for a pollenator?? I am in Virginia and grow all of my citrus in pots -so- please suggest something that will be OK in a large pot.

My other citrus are Berus Lime, Meyer and Kumquat.

Any and all help is appreciated.

Cheers,
DL

Your 'Meyer' should do it. Bearss lime makes no pollen at all, an I suspect Kumquat is rather too distant to work very well.

I doubt Meyer will be suitable. Temple or Nova are the two most commonly suggested pollinators for the Minneola. Dancy should also work (Minneola is a Dancy-Grapefruit cross).

HHmm
I grew it inside year round when I lived up north and it produced all the time, no way of getting any pollen...
I know growers of it that dont use other trees and theirs produce fine too...
Oh well..

'Meyer' is quite suitable. Virtually any citrus with pollen, other than 'Orlando' or 'Seminole' will work with 'Minneola'. It is not picky. I suppose some varieties/species might give a bit higher fruit set than others, but the major reason for specific pollenizer recommendations would be other aspects of their performance in the same grove. And Orchidguy -- I believe you, but have no explanation. Your experience with your tree certainly is different from "common wisdom" about the variety, and goes against my experience with growing them, over the past 40 years. And certainly at the commercial level, no one would dream of growing 'Minneola' without a pollenizer. Planting pollenizer rows in a grove is a hassle with all aspects of grove management, forever, so growers would not do it if they didn't perceive it to be a necessity.

orchidguyftl:
Minneola tangelos by themselves are better termed self-unfruitfull than self-incompatible. They will not set a load of fruit that is commercially viable in isolation. This is not the same as saying they won't set any fruit at all.

malcolm_manners:
Dancinglemons specifically asked for "the best tree to purchase for a pollenator". I don't believe that anyone, you included, would suggest that meyer lemon is the best pollinizer for Minneola. Temple is the most commonly recommended variety I've seen. I did misremember about the Nova -- the other highly recommended variety for Minneola is the Sunburst (hey, what's a nova but a sun bursting?). The attached URL is where I got this information several months ago when I was doing research to answer the very question DL had asked. Since then, I've seen the Temple mentioned in several other locations as well -- which is why I have one in my dooryard orchard to act as a stud for my Minneola and Page trees.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pollination of Citrus Hybrids

Oviedo -- I don't want to argue, but while you may have been trying to find and recommend the very best pollenizer, what you actually said was "I doubt Meyer will be suitable." I would certainly not claim that 'Meyer' is the best pollenizer possible, only that it will do the job entirely adequately, and the op states that he already has 'Meyer'. So I merely point out that the purchase of another pollenizer is not necessary. Interestingly, I grew up at a house that had 2 citrus trees in the yard -- a 'Minneola' and a 'Meyer' adjacent. Both trees produced huge crops regularly. We also kept bees, so of course there could have been "foreign" pollen coming in from the neighborhood as well, but these were the two varieties we had. I also notice in the IFAS-EDIS site of your link that they list only other mandarin types, for the very reasons I mentioned above -- it would be a very weird grove to have tangelos mixed amongst lemons, juice oranges, or some other dramatically different fruit type. Instead, they recommend other types that grow similarly, and produce fruit for a similar market (high-value fresh in this case), which will need similar sprays (e.g. for alternaria brown spot, scab, rust mite), etc. In a commercial planting, that's only reasonable. But for a home grower with limited space, it is surely not necessary to use any of those specific varieties.

The self- and cross-incompatibility that 'Minneola' and its kin exhibit seems to be nearly unique to mandarin hybrids, in which there is a genetic recognition of "self," and if pollen carrying the same genetic marker for "self" lands on a stigma (from the same variety or, in this case, from 'Orlando' or 'Seminole'), the pollen tubes are inhibited from growing down and fertilizing the ovules. Pollen with a different genetic fingerprint is not inhibited, so will form good pollen tubes, and fertilization will occur. At that point, fruit set has occurred (due to gibberellins from the pollen tubes and, subsequently, from the newly fertilized zygote). Then, even if the embryo ultimately were to die, due to some genetic problem from a wild outcross (let us say lemon by tangelo), the deed is done -- the seed is already producing nucellar embryos which are cranking out their own gibberellins, and so the fruit remains on the tree, with seeds.

'Minneola' is also unusual among citrus varieties, in that there is a fairly direct relationship between seed number and fruit size. In most other types (oranges, even other mandarins), either the fruit sets or it doesn't; seed number won't much affect the ultimate size to which the fruit will grow. But for really big 'Minneola' fruit, you want a bunch of seeds in them. I don't know of even another tangelo that does that. 'Minneola' is just a strange variety.

http://www.halegroves.com/Citrus-Florida-Honeybells---Honeybells-Oranges-from-Florida---Ship-Honeybells-6.cfm
Hale Groves state:
"Another interesting fact to note about a the Honeybell is that they are not self-pollinating trees."......."Most mandarin types of citrus (some lemons, limes, tangerine or grapefruit, too) are suitable pollinators for the Florida Honeybell orange."