The Tropical Fruit Forum

I found this orange tree while putting gas in my truck it was growing against a chain link fence next to a vacant lot so I walked over and picked off a few of the fruit I will get pictures of the tree next time I put gas in, this tree was not intentionally planted it it's In a corporate complex next to a vacant lot here are some pictures of the fruit. I dont believe the leaves were trifoliate I'll check next time. I'm assuming just a malnourished feral Valencia or something.

last week i got my order of budwood from the ccpp and i decided to attempt some fruit salad trees, i will probably give them away to family and a few friends for christmas presents. Fruit Salad tree #1 has grafted to it, Pineapple Sweet orange, California rojo orange, valentine pummello, New zealand lemonade, ponkan mandarin, and giant key lime. Fruit Salad tree #2 has grafted to it, Valentine pummelo, new zealand lemonade, templexminneola, ortanique tangor, cara cara navel, and giant key lime.Fruit salad tree #3 has grafted to it valentine pummelo, ortanique tangor, ungli tangelo, new zeland lemonade, templexminneola, and CA rojo orange. its been 9 days since ive grafted them and they are still covered in parafilm ive been so tempted to unravel the parafilm and check on their progress but most info i could find suggested leaving them wrapped for 21 days to ensure healing i decided to chip bud graft them as last time i attempted to do any grafting i tried T-bud grafting but i dont think the bark was slipping and none of the grafts took all dried out... fruit salad tree #1 and #2 were done on rootstock donors labeled "limoneira/carrizo" fruit salad tree #3 did not have a rootstock label on it, it was a rio red grapefruit donor so im not sure what rootstock it is or if this affect the grafts taking. im going to give the grafts another week before i unwrap them and check on their progress. here are some pics the big tree is the rio red donor #3.

I have been growing out a sumo mandarin seed for the past 3 months 1 seed sent up 3 sprouts 2 larger ones and 1 smaller one, both the larger seedlings stopped growing and slowly declined after about the first month. Those 2 died, the smaller seedling has continued to grow but is struggling it started losing chlorophyll and stopped top growth. When i repotted it the roots had new white growth tips so i repotted and gave it a good watering. i use distilled water at pH of like 5.5-6 after i put the nutrients in it. the soil i use for it was cactus/palm/citrus mix and i added in perlite. i thought maybe it was losing chlorophyll due to inadequate light levels so i moved it out onto the patio into some direct sunlight for a few hours of the day. it gets watered about 1 time a week a deep watering. this seedling is the smallest of the 3 and i believe to be the zygotic seedling but who knows really. here are some pictures of its development, wondering if you guys think i should be doing something different or just keep doing what im doing and see if it improves and sends out new growth.

So I have an indoor greenhouse that I have a few seedlings in and an ugli tangor I grafted, for the past 2 months I've been battling a fungus gnat infestation. I have broken down the greenhouse and bleached it clean. Recently I did this and reported my seedlings and wouldn't you know the gnats are back. I have some seedlings in SEALED containers with soil but they are completely sealed and I noticed there were gnats in some of these sealed containers and that's when I figured it all out I have been using soil that I have in a bag in the patio closet but the soil must have been contaminated with these gnats so every time I've cleaned out the greenhouse and sterilized it I've reintroduced the gnats by over looking the original problem infested soil. Sometimes its the most obvious things that we overlook. But one thing I did notice is that all the containers that had gnats were fungus and mold free and one of the containers that didn't have any gnats actually had an issue with mold or fungus. So tomorrow I will be cleaning and sterilizing the greenhouse yet again and will be repotting the trees into new Sterile soil.

On a side note my sumo mandarin seed just sent up its first set of leaves and is doing very well. My greenhouse temps are a high of 84degrees and a low of 72degrees with a 14hour day the humidity has a high of 54% and a low of 34% and these numbers are my daily values I can fully control my greenhouse temps and light cycles are these appropriate values for citrus specifically Shiranui or should I adjust the temps or day lengths or humidity? ? Thank you for your input and advice
-Josh

Hello my name is Josh, im new to growing citrus, but ive been growing aquatic plants for some years now so am somewhat familiar with it. i decided to grow some orange trees from seeds, i sourced the fruit from local orange trees, as there used to be local orange/olive orchards nearby and many of the houses still have the original orange/olive trees in their yards. I have been growing the seeds in containers in my room under some LED lighting. eventually they will be moved out into full sunlight(very soon as they have almost outgrown their homes). just thought i would share this with you guys. i have no idea what variety of seeds they are from the most research i could do didnt give me a solid answer. here are some pictures of their progress.