I have an orange tree seedling about 2 years old. I understand that they bloom after reaching a certain node count, but am wondering at what height or age I can expect this to be? It is the first citrus seedling that has not been devoured by snails and I want to know if it is worth the space and time to see what it turns into.

Thanks for the help,

Dylan

From what I have learned, most citrus will bloom within 3-5 years when planted in the ground.

Thanks for the info. It will probabbly be on the longer end of the range as it is in mostly shade and we have much less summer heat and humidity than on the east coast.

I agree our heat & humidity have a lot to do with it.I planted two grapefruit from a store bought Ruby red. Everyone told me it would be 15+ years if ever that I would get fruit. Both trees started fruiting @ 5 years and are loaded today with fruit.

Growing in containers is a different story all together though.

Under central Florida conditions, I'd estimate the following:

Mandarin types -- 2-3 years from seed
Grapefruit -- 5-8 years
Sweet orange -- 8-15 years, probably averaging at least 10.
Lemons -- 3-4 years
Calamondin -- 1-3 years

Malcolm

Malcolm what is the average for sour orange? I gave my neighbor a variegated sour orange seedling I grew 5 years ago & it is fruiting for the first time this year.

Malcolm, Thank you for the information. I think I may remove this seedling and try with a mandarin instead. I already have an Avocado I'm trying from seed and don't have room for a large citrus as well. Citrus seem grow much slower than avocados here but that may be due to the dwarfing rootstock. My avocado tree is over 9 feet tall in just under 4 years and the orange is about 2 feet in 2 years, but the orange is in a lot of shade.

Dylan

Laaz, I don't know for Sour Orange, but I do have an old one in my back yard. Just looking at where the fruit starts on that tree, I think it could have reached that size in 5 years.

Dylan, Yes, avocados are always much faster growing than citrus. I'd say 2-3 times as fast, here.

Dylan, graft that avocado! There is a low probability that it will produce large quantities of good fruit any time soon. There are a lot of large avocado seedlings (to 20 ft.) in my neighborhood that don't produce at all!

Chris, I had 1 seedling avocado flower after about 6 years after getting frozen to the main 1 trunk one year. It was in a bad spot and I removed it to give one of the grafted avocados more space. I think it will be interesting to see what my new seedling from a 'Reed' turns into. From what I have read this seedling should take 2-6 more years before fruiting that is if we don't get a bad freeze or other event that sets it back.