The Tropical Fruit Forum

The Florida Nursery, Growers & Landscape Association Citrus Nursery Division held a meeting in Apopka recently. Part of the sidebar discussions among attendees included the amazing health and vigor of the ‘Gold Nugget’ mandarin.

NVDMC originally brought the ‘Gold Nugget’ to Florida in hopes of finding an alternative to the ‘Honey Tangerine’ for the late season. As is typical with new mandarins in Florida, all of the early trees were grafted onto ‘Cleo’ liners. The trees grew well and looked decent, but did not produce enough fruit to be commercially viable.

As HLB continued to wreak havoc on old-line varieties, the ‘Gold Nugget’ seemed to hold its own. The worse everything else looked, the better the ‘Gold Nugget’ looked. The oldest planting of ‘Gold Nugget’ mandarins was at Conserv II. At the time this article was written, the front-end loaders were closing in on the block, but the trees were still standing. A small group of nursery owners drove out to see the trees. The trees remained dark green with a thick canopy, despite 14 to 18 months without irrigation, pest control, or nutrition.

NVDMC recently converted its ‘Gold Nugget’ contract from trial only, to also include dooryard and commercial production. This variety is a natural fit for dooryard growers. The jury is still out on its commercial utility in Florida, but more growers could be working with it soon.




http://www.freshplaza.com/article/177510/Citrus-variety-Gold-Nugget-becoming-more-appealing-for-Florida-growers

What medium is the tree planted in?  What are you fertilizing with, it has symptoms of a potassium deficiency.  How often do you fertilize the tree? Lastly have you checked the root system.?

A second bloom is more or less common.  The fruit set on the second bloom is almost always of less quality.  My Cara Cara's second bloom from last season is just now maturing  The quality is poor.

When buying larger size container trees, the very best larger container grown trees are the trees grown in Root Maker Air Root Pruning Containers.  They take off right away when planted in the ground.

Besides the low bushy growth pattern, I can also see the effects of Paclobutazol  in the extra dark green leaves.   Since Packlobutazol encourages early flowering, the bloom your tree has could will be from the Paclobutazol.

The kumquat parent used in the kucle hybrid is the Nagami kumquat.  Both parents of the Kucle (Nagami and Clementine) do not produce true from seed.

crea2k  looking at the leaves of your friends tree, the tree is showing a deficiency of magnesium. and perhaps a slight deficiency of manganese. .

Greg N nice to see you again. Its been a while.  Regards

Good luck with your trials.  Hope your not to old at this time.

One of the largest growers of Finger Limes and Australian Blood limes (cross between Finger Limes and Burmese Lime with 1400 trees.

http://www.freshplaza.com/article/176999/AU-Increased-exposure-for-the-Australian-Blood-lime

There are probably some grapefruit/lemon hybrids , probably private hybrids.  I would think such a hybrid would result in a grapefruit even more bitter then normal, or a lemon that was somewhat washed down in taste.  But you never now.

As far as the rarity of a seedling grapefruit flowering while still juvenile your even ahead of the game with a second flower.  Very interesting, be sure to post future developments.

Citrus that are deficient in potassium shows leaves with a yellowish cast which are bent downward at the tip.