Citrus Ripe in SoCal

[sc4001992]

Just curious what citrus fruits are ripening now on your trees here in SoCal.

Can you mention the variety and post any photos you might have of the fruits.

All my grapefruits are finishing up now, just have some left over Oroblanco fruits. My oranges are all done except for my special variegated valencia oranges. They fruit all year long since the normal green branches have fruit at slightly staggered times than my variegated fruits.

Right now I ripe fruis are mainly Bearss Limes, Lisbon seedless lemon, Variegated Valencia ornage. I'll post the Valencia Orange photos later tonight, busy grafting still.

[MasOlas]

Picked all seven Valencia's and they were spectacular. A dozen American Beauty dragon fruit blooms are showing, Meyers lemons are ready.

[sc4001992]

I also noticed the taste of the Valencia oranges were pretty good now.

[ac]

Meyer and Eureka lemons, Bearss and Mexican thornless limes, Ortanique, Sanguinelli, Valencias are OK but not very sweet yet. Just finished my last Star Ruby grapefruit and Gold Nuggets last week.  Wish I had more Gold Nuggets, they are at peak flavor now but I had a poor crop due to terrible weather during the bloom last spring.  Shasta Gold, Tango, Minneola would probably be good now but didn’t manage to set any fruit last spring.

That’s about a mile from the coast.

[Millet]

In Colorado, Dekopon (Sumo), Ponkan, Caracara, Marsh white Seedless Grapefruit, and Red grapefruit, all mature and eaten already.

[MarktLee]

Most tangerine varieties are way past harvesting in California. Most from the UCR clonal protection program fruit from November to February. The best one that is good up until almost June is "Gold Nugget" I don't have Sumo or Shoranui but I suppose they should be good on the tree for a long time also. Anyway, anyone with those let us know.

[sc4001992]

Mark, I do grow all the ones you mentioned. My Gold Nugget ends about April, only a handful left at that time. It does ripen from late Dec-April for me. Very good flavor/taste. This year it was my best tasting mandarin.

[sc4001992]

Sumo ripens for me from Dec-Mar.

Here's some of my older photos I took.






These 13 fruits on my tree was a 2 year old grafted branch. The fruits weighed so much it broke the branch and I had to support it with a post and repair the cracked branch, healed fine next year.

[12Zodiac]

The Golden Nuggets tasted the best of all my citrus this year. Unfortunately Golden Nuggets season ended for me in April. There are 2 hanging Sumo as pictured below next to a store bought navel orange. My unknown tangerine still has many hanging fruits waiting to be ripen. It’s also loaded with new fruits too.



 

[sc4001992]

I agree with you on the Gold Nugget, it was my best tasting this year.

I'm surprised you still have some green sumo hanging on your tree, mine were all done in March. Interesting that you still have green tangerines on your tree. All of my mandarins/tangerines are done for now, new fruits are starting on some.

I do have plenty of Valencia ripe oranges on my tree, and my first time fruiting Banpeiyu (suppsed to get to 10 lbs) almost ripe now. I did pick one fruit and it was about 3 lbs. I take some photos and brix reading this weekend to document this giant fruit. My grafts had 3 fruits, one fell off early before getting mature, the other two are doing well, only one large fruit left on the tree. I'll wait until it falls off when I touch it. The oranges in the background is my Variegated Valencia fruits.

[sc4001992]

My Melogold fruits just ended, picked the last one. But my Oroblanco fruits are still hanging on the tree, had a lot this year, gave most of them away to neighbors.

[12Zodiac]

I am dying for some grapefruit or Pomelo. I purchased some Tahitian Pomelo scions from UCR and grafted to my satsuma tree on May 2023. It has taken over the tree.  It was a bad idea. Now I will have to remove it.

[sc4001992]

You can leave it alone. Just trim any of the tall branch tips and you can keep it at any size you want and will still get fruits next year.

I grafted many grapefruits and pomelos on madarin trees and let the mandarins fruit low (never gets tall) and have the pomelos and grapefruits hold fruits right above, like at 5-6 ft.

[12Zodiac]

I’ll take your advice and keep it trimmed. Thanks Kaz. 

[Adrian57]

In my little part of the world the first ready to pick and eat is the "Navelina" end of June "Cara Cara" end of July "Washington" end of August "Blood Navel" end September, "Lanes Late Navel" mid October, TOC summer Navel November and "Valencia" Nov/Dec.

So I can guts myself on oranges for 6 months.

 

[kulasa]

Mark, I do grow all the ones you mentioned. My Gold Nugget ends about April, only a handful left at that time. It does ripen from late Dec-April for me. Very good flavor/taste. This year it was my best tasting mandarin.

I love love Gold nugget! What is your tree grafted onto?

[sc4001992]

My Gold Nugget was purchased about 30yrs ago from Armstrong nursery locally so it has some semi-dwarf rootstock. Now I have about 5 other varieties grafted on this Gold Nugget tree and the grafted branches of sumo, and other mandarins are doing well and fruits a lot just like the Gold Nugget. My Yosemite Gold is also grafted on this tree and it looks like it will have fruits this year.

[snowjunky]

Wow! Sumo's hand citrus?  Check the radiation on that.

[snowjunky]

Kaz is your sumo from CCPP and seedless?  My CCPP sumo has a few seeds each fruit.

[sc4001992]

Steve, I have 3 separate orders from CCPP. The early ones are good, they are all seedless and have the nice bump/neck.

The last ones I purchased in 2019 seems to be the weird one. They don't always get the neck/bump on top, and the fruits pretty much all have seeds, maybe 2-9 in each fruit. Taste wise, the earlier ones I purchased in 2017 when they first started selling the Shiranui scionwood, those seems to be the best fruits and looks like the sumo at the markets.

[12Zodiac]

Just picked one of the 2 Sumo. It weighed just a little over 2 lbs.

[snowjunky]

That's a big boy. Put a mawashi on it.

[sc4001992]

Wow, that is a huge fruit, haven't seen one that big.

[12Zodiac]

That's a big boy. Put a mawashi on it.

Haha, had to search what a mawashi is. In sumo, a mawashi is the loincloth that rikishi wear during training or in competition.

To answer snowjunky question, I acquired my sumo scion from CCPP last year and the fruit I just harvested has no seed.

[SoCal2warm]

Oroblanco grapefruit only ripens moderately well in the Mission Viejo area. It's still a little too close to the coast.
Probably would do a little better in the Santa Ana area, I'm thinking.

Make no mistake, the summers still get hot. But I guess the heat just does not last quite long enough throughout the day and year, and the warmth during the rest of time is just a little below optimal. And despite this, sun scorch can still be a little bit of an issue, so the plants do prefer just a little bit of partial shade while young.