The Tropical Fruit Forum

Bret, long time no see.  Welcome back.

Mother Orange tree.   In 1856 Judge Joseph Lewis purchased three sweet orange seedlings from Jesse Morrill in Sacramento, California, and these were planted in the vicinity of Oroville, California in Butte County. One of these trees was planted at the west end of the famous suspension bridge at an area known as Bidwell's Bar and is still living and bearing large crops annually. It has come to be known as the Mother Orange Tree, and is now apparently the oldest and largest living orange tree in California.  Measurements made by an official committee on November 27, 1926, gave the size of the tree as follows:  Height 33 feet 6 inches, spread of top 31 feed 5 inches, circumference of trunk one foot from the ground 66 inches.  The tree is still alive today.

Taken from the book The Citrus Industry  Vol. 1 1943










 

Definitely not a pure Yuzu.

As far as cupping, your tree looks normal.  However, your tree looks greatly underfed.  How often do you fertilize the  tree?  Also what is all the white stuff on the fruit and leaves. -It could be mealy bug.

Many times it is a watering problem.  When the tree is parched and receives a lot of water, it absorbs the water so fast the fruit expands rapidly and the fruit splits.  Try keeping the root zone evenly moist.

No not citrus greening.  Many of the leaves are just showing that they are old.  A citrus leaf has a life span of 18 months.  How often do you fertilize your tree, and how old is the tree/

A tree that size without bloom must be a seedling grown tree.  Normally 7 - 9 years from planting to bloom for your seedling tree.

In citrus, generally only 1 to 2 percent of the flowers ever remain to produce fruit.  If every flower on  a citrus tree remained to produce fruit, the tree would be crushed under its own weight.  The flower drop had nothing to do with fertilizing.

Nice looking trees.  How old are they?

Fungicides ae usually needed for adequate control.  Maneb, mancozeb, chlorothalonil, metiram, strobilurins, and copper fungicides are the most widely used products.  Where the disease is severe and environmental conditions are favorable for he pathogen, several applications are usually required to produce acceptable control.  In humid climates, applications begin when the spring flush is one-fourth expanded  Where humid conditions exist, follow-up sprays could be required.   Good Luck with your tree.  We would appreciate hearing out how your tree is doing.  (Taken from the Compendium of Citrus Diseases.)

In Colorado the temperatures are not high enough to sweeten white grapefruit as sweet as Florida grown fruit.  Therefore, I have continued to leave my Marsh grapefruit hang on the tree until the end of May.  Over the months I sampled a fruit every couple weeks.  And every couple weeks the fruit became a little sweeter.  Today, the 21 of May I ate two of the grapefruit and they were quite sweet.  I noticed that when I picked them they were also some what soft and  juicier .  Time heals all things.

1,019 KG/M2 Plus