Citrus Bloom Time Is Comming

[Millet]

For many growers, both container and in ground growers,  in the northern hemisphere, blooming will begin in late January or February.  It takes a lot of the citrus tree's stored energy to produce a strong bloom.  Now is the time to give your trees a foliar spray of low biuret Urea or other nitrogen source.   The best time to apply a pre-bloom  foliar spray using a good nitrogen source is approximately two (2) months before expected flowering.  Doing so will GREATLY increase your tree's bloom, and the nutrition from the foliar spray will help your tree  retain more fruit. Spraying now will pay off big time.   - Millet

[fsanchez2002]

Millet thanks for the advice; I've got a lot of citrus but I'm not familiar yet with the particulars so your heads-up is hugely appreciated! Would it hurt to double up and also do pellets fertilizer now if I'm in  SFlorida ?

[luak]

Millet, all my citrus tree's are blooming now and for the last two weeks. I have them still outside in the driveway.I had to bring them in only one time when night temps went down to 29*.There are bee's flying around,day temps are still in the lower 60* I just picked 4 meyer lemons and they sure were big,bigger then a orange.

[Millet]

You could certainly double up if your area does not expect to receive any additional cold weather. - Millet

[BahamaDan]

What about a diluted nitrogen spray while the blooms are just forming on the tree? Like less than bb-sized.

[Millet]

Citrus bloom can be sprayed as long as they are not open still in the tight stage .  Spraying at the late date of  bloom would be somewhat beneficial, but not as beneficial at spraying before the blooming process has begun. - Millet

[BahamaDan]

Ok thanks Mr. Millet.

[fyliu]

Thanks Millet. I've been telling this to friends since I saw the post.

[Millet]

In the next month or two, many growers could begin to see higher levels of leaf drop from their trees.  Leaf drop for citrus trees is at  the highest level just before and during blooming. When older or defective leaves are no longer able to manufacture their quota of photosynthates (sugars) they are discarded.  The tree provides no welfare program for them.- Millet

[Zafra]

I'm totally new to citrus growing and have a couple of questions related to this post. First, I just put my grafted Valencia and California oranges, lime and mandarin in the ground a few months ago. At the time the Valencia was COVERED in blooms, but it's a very small tree, rounded but only a couple of feet tall so I (thanks to advice I got here) didn't let it hold any fruit. One fruit did get to golf ball size before I noticed it and pulled it off, and that was only a month ago. All of the trees suffered some unfortunate and unavoidable drought stress for several weeks, lost some new growth and just looked generally under the weather, but for the last month they've been getting regular water and tlc and are looking good. In fact, that little Valencia is flushing like crazy and, I just noticed today, flower buds. Then I checked the others - flower buds on the mandarin and the lime.
Questions - 1) I see now is the normal time for flowers on citrus, ok, but then why did the Valencia just finish flowering and trying to fruit a few months ago? Shouldn't there be some down time? 2) I suppose the Valencia is still too small to hold fruit, but what about the others, which are all over four feet tall? Let them hold one? Or should I make myself be patient and skip this year?
Thanks in advance for your help!

[achetadomestica]

Two years ago I had a clementine flower and produce about 100 little fruit. I pulled everyone of them off and a month later the tree flowered again. It's hard enough to pull them all off once but I ended up pulling little fruit twice that year. This year the tree looks great and I got about 25 fruit to ripen this past season.
  It is amazing how much more a tree grows if it isn't holding fruit. I have a total of 12 citrus trees so it is easier for me to pull fruit from a couple trees. This past year I pulled fruit from an ortanique, brown select, Xie shan, nules clementine, and a ponkan. All of those trees except the ponkan I have never even tasted. I let a different ponkan fruit and a sugarbelle that I will defintely will not let have fruit this season. Here in Florida we have had very warm winters the past two years and  one of my owari satsuma had fruit that was ripe in September and different fruit  ripen in December and now there is 6 fruit the size of golf balls? Have you ever heard of an everbearing owari? It flowered three different times last year and held fruit?
  We are finally having cold weather since January. Allot of the big growers were worried because we were so warm through December. They were worried the trees might not flower at all.  February 1st is when I start fertilizing only 2 weeks!

Mike
   

[Millet]

Zafra,  Citrus growing in tropical locations, can flower more then once a year.  Even in sup-tropical areas citrus produce off season blooms.  Research by Purdue University has shown that unless a citrus tree is EXTREMELY small you can leave one fruit on the tree without any loss of the tree's growth  what so ever.  A citrus fruit receives all the energy required to grow and produce a mature fruit from only the three closest leaves to the fruit. It does not take energy from the entire area of the tree.  Of all the blooms produced by a citrus tree, only 1 to 3 percent of the flowers will ever produce a fruit.  If every flower resulted in a fruit, the tree would be crushed under its own weight. Of the fruit that are initially produced, the tree will only retain the amount that it is able to bring to maturity, the rest will atuomaticly discarded. - Millet

[Zafra]

Thanks Millet, you had to tell me this about letting young trees fruit once before but I swear I've got it down now . That's great to know about flowering more than once a year in our climate - I guess I have that to look forward to when the trees are old enough to really produce - yay!

[raimeiken]

Great info there Millet! Thanks for sharing!

[Acocyetly]

This Cara Cara Naval I got is throwing out blooms

[Acocyetly]

Pineapple Orange