I'm delighted to announce that we've just planted the James P. dePass Citrus Grove on the Florida Southern College campus. Eight sweet orange varieties on various rootstocks. 21 trees total. Pics and more information at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mmmavocado/sets/72157626499680622/


Malcolm M. Manners, Ph.D.
John and Ruth Tyndall Professor of Citrus Science
Florida Southern College
Lakeland

Dr. Manners,

great news and a great story!

This November the 2011 Citrus Expo is to be held in Florida. I hope that Florida Southern College is included on the tour. (ATTN. STAN McKENZIE). It would be nice to see both the school and their grounds. Millet (641)

I'm just realizing from comments from Stan and some others that many of the photos were not viewable (apparently marked "private" in flickr). I've made all the permissions public now, so there should be many photos of the planting day available.

Its hard to actually tell, but from looking at the pictures, the trees seem to be planted relatively close to each other. - Millet (640-)

They're planted 14x20 feet, rectangular spacing. 14' north-to-south and 20 east-to-west. That's a fairly common commercial planting distance.

Malcolm

Thanks, looked closer in the pictures. - Millet (640-)

Today's Lakeland Ledger has this article on the front page:

http://www.theledger.com/article/20110707/NEWS/110709625?tc=cr

And I must apologize for and explain the mulch -- not my idea! The college did it to make the area "beautiful." Now I have to try to keep my trees alive despite the mulch. At least we have the tree teepees around the bases of the trunks, so the mulch is not actually touching them. Still, it will be a major breeding ground for fire ants and other nasties.

To continue FSC's re-expansion of the campus citrus variety collection, this past week we planted these:

Flame Red Grapefruit /Swingle
Ray Red Grapefruit /Swingle
Tahoe Gold Mandarin /Cleopatra
Bearss Lemon /Sour Orange
Tango Mandarin (DPI 168)
Xie Shan Satsuma (DPI 163)
Cara Cara Red Navel /Swingle
Yosemite Gold Mandarin /Cleopatra
Ruby Red Grapefruit /Swingle
Marsh Seedless Grapefruit /Kuharske
Shasta Gold Mandarin /Cleopatra
US Early Pride/ Swingle (seedless Fallglo)
Gold Nugget Mandarin /Cleopatra

These trees all came from the Philip Rucks Citrus Nursery. Phil and his production manager Jose Lima are both graduates of our citrus program.

Dr. Manners,

The college is doing a great thing with the new plantings except for the mulch! LOL

I have a question that I'm almost afraid to hear the answer.

Why is only one of the trees on Kuharske?

Quit a few of my trees are on Kuharske.

I have nothing at all against Kuharske; I just left these up to the nursery to choose the stock, and that happens to be what they produced for us. I'm not aware of any particularly strong reason not to use it. It is a fine rootstock, especially under sweet oranges.

In the DePass grove, we do at least keep the mulch out at the edge of the Tree-T-Pee, and in this new planting, there should be no mulch at all (but still over-irrigated St. Augustine grass in the middles). Again, we plan to use Tree-T-Pees, more for protection from the weed-eater maniacs than anything else.

Malcolm

I hadn't known some of UCR's "Gold" varieties like Tahoe, Yosemite, Shasta and Nugget had been released in Florida; they aren't on the (online) Budwood Registration List, at least. Are they being planted at FSC under special dispensation from FDACS? For that matter, though, Shiranui isn't on the list, either, but showed up at the big box stores this summer.

elsedgwick, The California mandarins are officially released in Florida. They are under patent, so there is a royalty and license, etc., but these were produced in a commercial nursery without any special dispensation to us.
MM