orange fruit split

[brian]

Found an immature orange split, still on the tree.  Never saw this before.  I google it and came up with some explanation here: http://homeorchard.ucdavis.edu/8038.pdf

Sounds like environmental factors are the cause including possible draught stress followed by sudden watering, changes in fertilization, and sunburn.  All of these are possible in my case.  We had some dry weather, I watered heavily, the sun hits fruit directly.  Some fruit are slightly discolored which I wasn't sure if was sunburn or normal ripening.  Just thought I'd share. 

This is a moro blood orange:



I ate it, it was pretty good actually. 

[Mike T]

In oranges that problem is usually caused by uneven water availability and it can afflict fruit from cherry size to nearly full size.Very dry periods followed by an abundance of water will very likely be the cause in this case.

[buddinman]

Too much water after being dry.

[Millet]

When a citrus tree becomes drought stressed the tree begins to withdraw water from the fruit.
When the citrus tree is irrigated the dehydrated fruit swell causing them to split. The best remedy to keep this from  happening is to maintain the soil, or the container medium evenly moist.  Navel Oranges are one of the worst varieties for splitting. - Millet

[phantomcrab]

Navel Oranges are one of the worst varieties for splitting.

Agreed.
Navel is the only orange I grow with a splitting problem.