Author Topic: Seville fruit staying half green after a year and a half on tree  (Read 749 times)

Citradia

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Why would my 5 ft tall Seville sour orange tree have fruit that won’t ripen after a year and a half? Grew great last year and blooming great this spring.




Galatians522

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Re: Seville fruit staying half green after a year and a half on tree
« Reply #1 on: May 20, 2022, 07:26:48 PM »
Citrus fruits turn orange because of cold/cool temperatures (just like fall leaves). In tropical places the peel will be green even when ripe. Here in Florida late ripening varieties (like Valencia) will start to turn green again as the weather warms back up. Maybe that is the case with your fruit. If it has been hanging on the tree that long, it is ripe (or even over ripe). I have eaten Valencia that hung for around 20-24 months. Usually the top half of the fruit is dry.

Citradia

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Re: Seville fruit staying half green after a year and a half on tree
« Reply #2 on: May 20, 2022, 08:26:35 PM »
I don’t think I have a lack of cold weather problem here in western NC. I’m going to cut open some fruit and assess further.

Galatians522

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Re: Seville fruit staying half green after a year and a half on tree
« Reply #3 on: May 20, 2022, 09:14:06 PM »
I don’t think I have a lack of cold weather problem here in western NC. I’m going to cut open some fruit and assess further.

I was assuming that a sour orange in zone 6b would be in a greenhouse.

SoCal2warm

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Re: Seville fruit staying half green after a year and a half on tree
« Reply #4 on: May 20, 2022, 10:03:04 PM »
Why would my 5 ft tall Seville sour orange tree have fruit that won’t ripen after a year and a half?
This is not unusual if the tree is still small, and especially if it is in a Northern climate with a shorter growing season.

Citradia

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Re: Seville fruit staying half green after a year and a half on tree
« Reply #5 on: May 21, 2022, 08:15:02 AM »
I cut open three fruit this morning. All were mostly pith and desicated. I agree with SoCal2warm: tree too small. My Rio Red made small pithy fruit the first few years, now the fruit is much better. Fruit may have frozen and dried out when it went to 14 degrees two nights in March. Even with space heater inside portable greenhouses, I didn’t have a 32 gallon water barrel in this one or my bergamot or shiranui, and the bergamot and shiranui almost died from that late freeze. They did well the previous winter, but this warmer winter followed by a hard freeze shocked them too much I guess, even though they were not showing signs of active growth yet.