Owari Satsuma

[Unicyclemike]

An Owari Satsuma growing in the ground in zone 8a......when does it usually start bearing new leaves in the spring and when can i roughly expect to pick the fruit in the fall to eat?  Thank you.

Mike Adams

[johngonole]

So my Satsuma which is two or three years old now (planted last spring) sustained a bunch of freeze damage.   I'm in North Florida and we had 4 or 5 days of subfreezing temperatures without even a break during the day.   We also had several nights where it touched 20 degrees.   We lost all the leaves and smaller branches got fried.

That said, my tree has new green shoots and leaves forming on both of them now.   I'm impressed that they made it through a deep freeze like that at all given they were small trees.   My Myer Lemon was not so lucky.   And I promise you all other citrus in this area has to be dead.   

But you should be seeing some growth now I would expect.   

You will have ripen fruit around beginning of December late November.  Hopefully by then you will get a cold snap.   The first year year after we planted we got fruit but it wasn't very good.   Last year we had only two fruit but they were actually really good.   Not sure if it was the extra year the trees had with a much smaller load or if it was the fact that I didn't water them.   Once the tree is established don't worry about lack of water in the winter that is natural and will help the fruit to sweeten.  You also hope to get a good frost or two before picking cause that also helps them sweeten.   

Sadly there isn't any way I'll be getting fruit this year.   The freeze took off about a years worth of growth and also the trees are putting all their energy into new growth and I don't see any blooms this year.   So will have to wait another 21 months before I get to taste them again. 

[Unicyclemike]

Thank you for your insight...Did you protect them at all over that cold snap?

Mike A

[hardyvermont]

An Owari Satsuma growing in the ground in zone 8a......when does it usually start bearing new leaves in the spring and when can i roughly expect to pick the fruit in the fall to eat?  Thank you.

Mike Adams

Owari are starting to bloom now.  They can be eaten with a green skin in October, ripe from early November until around Christmas. They are best around Thanksgiving.  It needs to be protected in zone 8a.  A few later blossoms can extend the season

[Kevin Jones]

My Owaris are blooming now...
Fruit should be pickable from November thru February.
Kevin

[jim VH]

It depends a lot on when the warm arrives. Here in the American Pacific Northwest, as the local joke goes, summer starts on July fifth and ends the Friday before Labor day. Some years that's actually true. So, my Owari didn't bloom until mid-May and it never got ripe, which is why I eventually exposed it to the frost gods to test its hardiness. (18 Fahrenheit, in case you care). Short season Satsumas, like LA Early or Okitsu do manage to ripen here. They all need winter protection, even in a zone 8b.

Jim

[Unicyclemike]

I am just trying to figure out how to get my owari satsuma to give me decent fruit by Thanksgiving.  So they would probably need to set blossom in Mid-March....What day/night temps do you need to achieve to get the trees to bloom? If indeed you provide artrifical heat/light...In other words what temps are needed for Owari's to set flowers?

Mike Adams

[poncirsguy]

MY non kumquat citrus start blooming in January indoors under 16 hours of lamp light and 5 hours of sun light.