Citrus Growers Forum

freddy · Posted: Sun 13 Mar, 2011 1:55 am

In a container, I have an approximately 3 1/2 to 4' tall navel orange tree which I purchased from a local nursery about 3 months ago. It looks very healthy with all dark green leaves. It started flowering like crazy a few weeks ago. The bees and butterflies are working the blooms daily but, after flowering and even forming some pea sized green buds (oranges) they keep falling off. I've noticed that everything that falls off is a break at the tiny stem.

It is a grafted tree. Is the tree to young or do I maybe need to do something to help it hold on to those tiny buds? I know that eventually, if all those flowers did produce fruit, alot of that would have to be trimmed off since the tree does appear to be too young to produce so much.

I would like to have posted some pictures which I took of the tree but, seems that when I click on anything that has to do with ImageShack my computer starts going nuts with all kinds of Pop Ups.

Thanks. Any help appreciated.

Millet · Posted: Sun 13 Mar, 2011 3:51 am

Very normal. A citrus tree normally retains only 1 - 3 percent of the flowers and small fruitlets that were originally set through to maturity. The remainder are dropped by the tree. If a citrus tree retained all the fruit that was originally set, the tree would be crushed under its own weight. - Millet (674-)

TRI · Posted: Sun 13 Mar, 2011 4:30 am

Citrus fruits require a lot of energy to ripen. I read on this forum that you should expect one fruit for every six leaves if I remember correctly. Please correct me if I am wrong. A citrus tree with thousands of leaves can produce hundreds of fruit, but small potted citrus has much fewer leaves so yields will be smaller.

DaveF · Posted: Tue 15 Mar, 2011 12:42 pm

Millet wrote:

Very normal. A citrus tree normally retains only 1 - 3 percent of the flowers and small fruitlets that were originally set through to maturity. The remainder are dropped by the tree. If a citrus tree retained all the fruit that was originally set, the tree would be crushed under its own weight. - Millet (674-)

Could I infer from this that there is no need for me to be pulling off the small oranges that start on my meyer lemon and that it will drop any that it can't handle on its own? Mine is flowering like mad right now and has tons of small (dime size) oranges started on it.

Millet · Posted: Tue 15 Mar, 2011 2:45 pm

You do not have to do anything. Your tree will keep only the amount of fruit that it is capable of maturing, and will discard the rest. In the end your tree will discard most of the small fruitlets that were originally set, so no need to worry. - Millet (671-)

ashleysjc · Posted: Fri 18 Mar, 2011 1:08 pm

Millet wrote:

You do not have to do anything. Your tree will keep only the amount of fruit that it is capable of maturing, and will discard the rest. In the end your tree will discard most of the small fruitlets that were originally set, so no need to worry. - Millet (671-)

Millet, though I know this to be true and never try to pinch off the fruitlets, I always wonder how the small trees in the nursery seem to be loaded with fruit when they are on display. What methods do the growers use in order to make these tiny trees hold on to atleast half a dozen oranges or lemons?

Millet · Posted: Fri 18 Mar, 2011 10:02 pm

The normal number of fruit retained by a nursery tree depends on the size of the tree. Without seeing an actual tree, it is difficult to determine if the tree has more or less the normal amount of fruit that would be expected. However 6 fruit does not seem excessive. Normally every 3 - 4 leaves are capable to retaining a fruit.- Millet (668-)