Ok so several of the fruits on my trees are ready for picking, primarily the satsumas and tangerines. On both trees the fruit is very dry, what causes this? One might guess underwatering?

Thanks Frank

I encounter this, if I harvest my fruit a couple of days or weeks to late.
So I have to pick my fruits after counting month, my mandarins get picked after 10 Month of growing, regardless of the peel color.
And since that, the fruit taste well, look:




Green peel and a very sweet, high aromatic flesh and juice.
External coloration isn't a thing to determine matury of the fruit, I had to learn...

wow nice

Steve is correct, satsumas are usually ready long before they are fully orange. Once they turn fully orange they start to decline very fast.

My yard's climate pattern produces dark colored Owari Satsumas but still they are very tart. I usually monitor by tasting them daily, a week after the peels turned dark orange, until the flavor have the best balance of sweetness and tartness. After that, I'll only have one to two weeks before they become puffy and granulated.

That is why I have Gold Nugget and Yosemite Gold mandarins. They're excellent keepers on the tree and they taste very good starting in late winter till late summer.

Granulation is the term that describes dry tasting citrus fruits. Some of the pulps have dried out, and are sometimes tasteless and or bitter tasting. It is a complex problem in citruses whose causes are hard to figure out. But I am definitely certain that in some cultivars like satsumas, grapefruits, navels, and others, keeping them on the tree longer than necessary increases the degree of granulation.


Characteristics of citrus fruits in relation to granulation
R.R. Sharmaa, Corresponding Author Contact Information
The Corresponding Author, Room Singha and S.K. Saxenab

aDivision of Fruits and Horticultural Technology, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110 012, India
bCentral Institute of Subtropical Horticulture, Rehmankhera, Lucknow, India

Abstract

A study was conducted in different citrus cultivars to observe the incidence and degree of granulation, and to measure polyphenol oxidase (PPO) activity and phenolic content pattern in relation to granulation. Standard procedures were followed to observe the incidence and degree of granulation, phenolic content pattern, PPO activity and pheno-physicochemical fruit characteristics of citrus fruits. Across all citrus cultivars studied, 25% of the fruit were affected by granulation to the degree of about 10%. In general, granulated fruit were larger in size than normal fruit, and were inferior in quality characteristics. Among different citrus cultivars, ‘Kaula’ mandarin had highest incidence of granulation (62.5%), followed by ‘Mosambi’ sweet orange (43.6%) and the least in ‘Kagzi’ lime (12.2%). Phenolic content and polyphenol oxidase activity also varied widely among different citrus types, and were significantly higher in normal fruit than granulated fruit. Thus, it appears from the study that PPO plays some role in the occurrence of granulation in citrus.