Citrus Growers Forum

BobsCitrus · Posted: Mon 19 Dec, 2011 1:12 am

2011 started off with a hundred-year freeze here in Southern AZ. No sooner than my trees recovered from that, I had my first significant brush with CLM (will be on a very regular Spinosad and neem oil program next year). Despite the challenges (or maybe because of them?) my prize Minneola tangelo set a pretty heavy crop. Most of the fruit are medium to small size and lack "necks" this year, instead of the usual medium to large with necks. Seems the foliage reduction may have impacted the fruit's growth, oh well. See linked web album below, apologies for my crummy photography:
https://picasaweb.google.com/elinthicum/201112Tangelo?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCO-lu5OT1ubDvQE&feat=directlink Edit: fixed link...

Lemandarangequatelo · Citruholic Joined: 01 Mar 2010 Posts: 475 Location: UK

Beautiful tree and fruit!

SeaHorse_Fanatic · Posted: Mon 19 Dec, 2011 6:04 am

I hope my citrus grow to look like that one day. Nice.

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BobsCitrus · Posted: Sat 24 Dec, 2011 3:34 am

Thanks for the kind words, enjoying sharing the fruit with family and co-workers...

downsouthcitrus · Posted: Mon 26 Dec, 2011 12:43 am

very nice tree and landscape idea.....keep it up

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BobsCitrus · Posted: Thu 05 Jan, 2012 1:09 am

Thanks, added some additional pics and info: https://picasaweb.google.com/elinthicum/201112Tangelo?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCO-lu5OT1ubDvQE&feat=directlink

We've picked appx. 240 lbs of fruit so far, with 2-3 times that left to go. I can now understand how some people let fruit go unpicked. I don't think I'd want a full-size citrus tree - already using a a stepladder and a pole handled fruit picker. This is nominally a standard tree, but I believe the Minneola tangelo is naturally semi-dwarfish.

I need my other trees to start setting fruit, so I stop obsessing over this one, heh.

vanhelsing02 · Joined: 21 Jun 2009 Posts: 7 Location: Pardubie CZ

Super nice Very Happy

RyanL · Posted: Tue 17 Jan, 2012 4:17 pm

What a crop, beautiful tree, and the fruit is perfect color. nice job.

BobsCitrus · Posted: Wed 18 Jan, 2012 12:56 am

Thanks, 400 pounds and counting...

MarcV · Posted: Sat 21 Jan, 2012 6:32 am

That is one nice tree with an enormous amount of fruit you have! I wish I could grow citrus like that myself! Very Happy

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BobsCitrus · Posted: Mon 20 Feb, 2012 2:58 am

Thanks, Marc. Just finished picking today, final tally: appx. 600 pounds, or appx. 1500 pieces of fruit. New growth just starting to show... whew.

Eric "strongly considering the merits of dwarf trees" L.

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BobsCitrus

Darkman · Posted: Mon 20 Feb, 2012 12:42 pm

Eric,

Nice job!

How old is your tree?

Are you using drip or spray heads? How many and spacing?

Can you sell your crop or ?????

I have three Orlando tangelos and hopefully they will look like yours one day. They are flushing and setting blooms now!

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Charles in Pensacola

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BobsCitrus · Posted: Fri 24 Feb, 2012 1:22 am

Darkman wrote:

Eric,

Nice job!

How old is your tree?

Are you using drip or spray heads? How many and spacing?

Can you sell your crop or ?????

I have three Orlando tangelos and hopefully they will look like yours one day. They are flushing and setting blooms now!

Thanks, Charles.

10 yrs in the ground, planted from a 5 gal container March of '02.

Neither - using a soaker hose attached to regular garden hose, about 75 feet long spiraled around the under canopy starting about 1.5' from trunk (just leave the soaker there all the time, quick-connect to supply hose). I plan to semi-permanent plumb the supply to the soaker with pvc and upgrade the soaker to a premium grade 100' hose sometime in the next year.
[rant warning] Have not had much luck with drip (tried like heck, believe me) - too many things to go wrong and never really sure if trees are getting the right depth over the whole root zone. Spent more time checking and fixing than it was saving me vs traditional bubblers/basins. YMMV [/rant]

Just sharing with family and coworkers so far, but a roadside stand is not out of the question at some point, just for fun and make a few bucks maybe. This is one of the reasons why I'm trying to stay within bounds of "organic" growing - a selling point if nothing else. (We have a lot of guys selling bagged oranges out of the backs of trucks around here. One of these days, I need to buy some and see if I can tell where they are coming from and what variety. Anyway, it would be tough to compete unless I had something unique.)

You'll enjoy your tangelos. It's hard to beat a tangelo for flavor when they are at their peak. During the years when the fruit size is normal (somewhere between a large orange and a grapefruit), I eat 'em grapefruit style - not a fan of sticky fingers. One of my brothers-in-law used to have several backyard citrus trees, and the only fruit they didn't give away were the tangelos - they saved those for themselves, heh.

-Eric "sadly picking just-set fruitlets off his scraggly year old Bearss lime, hoping for some good growth this year"