The Tropical Fruit Forum

I would imagine you could get all sorts of different orange seeds or tangelos and such and plant about 200 you would probably end up with a disease resistant one. That's what happens in the woods. Only the strong survive. Besides that they seem stronger from seed generally than grafted or rooted. But they keep tearing down the woods and building stuff.

Unfortunately I have found what appear to be beautiful orange trees and bit into them and they taste like a lemon. Sour orange. I also rarely see citrus in people's yards anymore. The virus wiped them out.

This variety I found in the park would be good to cross with sugar bell in an attempt to improve the quality while maintaining disease resistance. Even not considering disease it's growing well in the woods which is tough. They cut it back a lot to keep it off the trail. I will look if any of the other disease resistant variety are still around in the parks. They cut everything down. Same wild my wild grapes growing in the park they cut them back a few years ago.

Here is a version of seeds reverting to wild but I was told on here that doesn't happen. So maybe this crossed with some kind of root stock like swingle.

This tree grew from a seed. Someone ate an orange and spit the seeds out 20 years ago. The tree is healthy while others in the area fade from greening or similar viruses. Tree and leaf looks like an orange. Oranges are full of seeds. Like 100 seeds inside which is the biggest negative. Orange looks normal on the outside. Tastes sweet, good flavor. Very slight trifoliate off flavor. But to put in perspective people pick these and eat them. They are less good than normal oranges but good. Tree is not thorny. Tall shade tree like which is how citrus grows from seed where they are shorter and bushier from cuttings.

I snagged some seeds off an unripe fruit today. Since everyone picks them they are hard to.get.

We have sugar bell. It is more vigorous than most. Still a baby. Unharmed by a hurricane. Appears disease free but not nearly as healthy as swingle and sour orange. Even sugar bell has some small suceptibility. Swingle, trifoliate etc has zero disease basically.

There is a wild orange that is edible growing in the park. Not the greatest tasting but edible. It's sweet not sour barely noticeable off taste maybe some trifoliate in it's background. It has been there as long as I remember grew from a seed. Full of seeds. It is totally disease resistant. Maybe it's some kind of hybrid. I might get seeds if I have a chance.

They should cross a Dunstan grapefruit with a really good red grapefruit maybe get a good disease resistant cold hardy grapefruit.

There was another ugli fruit looking type of orange growing wild again edible but not great but totally different from the first one. Was a field of them in the park but they cut them down. Totally disease and cold resistant. There was also a really good grapefruit tree growing wild. It all might be gone now.

I once had tiny almost invisible slugs feeding on my citrus. Neem oil cleared them up. I also sprayed the top of the soil

Symptoms could be nitrogen deficiency. Either way a good all full spectrum fertilizer will work. You could also spray with neem oil. Any insects or fungus feeding on it should be killed by neem oil sometimes that can contribute to the problem.

Grapefruit looks alright there but lack of energy in the tree will contribute to fruit being aborted or small. Could be some mildew or fungus or insects eating sap or low nutrients in soil or a combination.

In my experience this Shelly sand is junk for growing stuff other than cactus and similar plants like pineapple. But a small amount of it mixed with potting soil or compost plants love it.

Citrus like to dry out between watering they don't like soggy roots. So it's not a problem if they get really dry for a couple days. Good drainage is good for them. Though they can take a lot of water as long as they get to dry out for a bit. Its more common to over water them instead of them drying out. It's hard to dry them out too much because they are built to keep moisture with thick leaves and such.

Shells are almost entirely calcium carbonate. 99.9% will stay in the shell so crushed shell is almost the same as sand but a tiny amount of calcium will leak out which is good but you don't have to worry too much about it affecting salts, ph or being too much because it's small. But almost impossible for citrus to get too much calcium.

Bone meal will release a lot more calcium and other nutrients as it rots and of course fertilizer with micro nutrients should have calcium. Not sure why citrus like it so much. Never heard of it with other plants other than trace amounts. Here in Florida the river water, tap water etc has a lot of calcium due to the shells and such. It makes for really good soil for citrus. Florida had the best oranges in the world until the greening.

Though shells are alkaline. A small amount shouldn't significantly change the soil. Pure sand is neutral ph though a lot of sand are alkaline due to shells or minerals mixed in them.

The same Fairchild that bred grapes? Interesting...

Looking at it again it could be root bound in a small pot and need a good fertilizing with micro nutrients. Citrus like bone meal due to high calcium

Looks dried out or cold damage.

They are not heavy feeders. Really the citrus roots are probably more agressive than queen palm but they grow fine together. Here in Florida the dirt is usually sand which doesn't hold water or nutrients anyway

Never had a problem with queen palms next to citrus. Live oak is the main problem I saw. They suck up nutrients from other plants for quite some distance.

Grow that hybrid and sell some seeds on here.