How realistic is the no-spray organic part of growing hardy citrus in zone 7a? I'm looking at trees like Changsha mandarin and owari satsuma with some kind of protection on below 20 degree nights. If I can protect them from cold injury, will I just lose them to diseases or pests? How take-care-of-themselves would citrus trees be in my climate when it comes to pests and diseases? Thanks!
Eric

Hard to say! If you are out of the Citrus growing areas, you may not get as many Citrus insect pests as in the Citrus areas. Insect transmitted virus may be unlikely to find your place, and some other diseases may not occur in your climate? Cold injury is probably your main worry. What is the organic "no spray" policy? There are plenty of sprays used by organic growers, just not the same ones as in other systems.

Horticultural Oil is completely non toxic, completely safe to use. It kills aphids, mealy bug, scale,and do a fair job on white fly all by suffocation. These problem insects are the big 4 insects that you will need to control. Horticultural Oils do a VERY GOOD job at controlling the insects listed above, plus horticultural oil is allowed for use under organic growing guidelines. Therefore, you should not have much of a problem growing your trees organically. - Millet (355 ABO-)

I have been growing two Owari Satsumas here in zone 7B-8A of North Georgia for about three years. I have never sprayed them with anything except water and have never had any pests of any kind.

Being that we are substantially outside normal citrus producing areas, its quite possible that our plants are not going to attract the common citrus pests / diseases.

Besides cold protection, occasional watering and fertilizing, there is really nothing else I do to my trees.

Thanks a lot for the advice. I was definitely hoping to hear what you said, Cristofre. I figure if I'm going to go to the trouble of dealing with the cold that it would be nice not to have to trouble with pests/diseases, too. To answer your question, pagnr, I'm open to using organic-approved type sprays (like horticultural oil), but on the other hand, I'd like to be as self-sufficient as possible, and I'm open to letting that mean putting a pomegranate in my one prime location instead of citrus. I also find sprays, etc. difficult on a small scale. For instance, will I be able to purchase what I need at a reasonable price in a quantity appropriate for just one tree? Will three-quarters of it go bad before I use it up? Will I have to have a dedicated sprayer? Will I be able to stay on top of actually using the spray when I need to? It could be easy to overlook one tree. Citrus is awfully unique and alluring, though, and I don't ever eat any store-bought fruit, so if I don't grow it I'll just be doing without it altogether. If I do go for citrus, I'm still torn between a fresh eating fruit and more of a lemon substitute, which would be useful in so many ways. I'm even thinking of building something like a sandbag wall to create a second good micro-climate for a second cold-hardy citrus.

A few more comments regarding your last post.

You mentioned putting in a pomegranate. I have one that I put in about three years ago and it is doing great. I only protected it with a pile of straw the first year- the last 2- no protection with no damage with temps down in low teens at the coldest on rare nights.

Dormant oil / horticultural oil is sold concentrated in small bottles at seed/feed stores, garden centers. One bottle might cost 10-15 dollars and make many gallons of spray when mixed with water.
IE- you might never have to buy it again with only one tree, of course it is good for other fruit trees and plants. I personally don't know how an oil would go bad, but I'll let the experts correct me if Im wrong.

As for choosing eating-out-of-hand or lemon substitutes, you might think this is strange, but I use unripe Satsumas as a lemon substitute. They are quite acidic until ripe.

In Freance, they use unripe Oranges like lemons.

Tastes better than lemons to me ...

They also make a great jam from them, though the green fruits look nasty in jam ..

Thomasville Citrangequat can be used as a lemon / lime substitute & is quite hardy.