My Miho mandarin appears to be fully ripe with skin being very easy to peal - color is orange - fruit is not pithy, but, taste is very bland. Is this normal for the Miho, or, could it be lack of ferilizer, insufficient water or maybe Texas hor weather?? Please advise your thoughts.

Bill

Mine is very sweet, and lacks acid.

If it is a young tree, that may be the reason. Most citrus get better tasting as the tree matures.

Following up on Laaz's post, a mandarin tree needs to be approximately 5 years old before the fruit begins to develop a quality taste..

To reach quality fruit bearing:
Has it got to do with minimum tree size or just chronological age or both?

Joe I would say its tree size as you can take a bud from a mature tree & the new budding will produce fruit the following year , but taste is nowhere near what the parent tree fruit is.

That is mostly true Laaz. And I agree that tree size has a big influence.

But sometimes, I managed to snuck away some irresistible mandarin fruits from small (less than 2 ft high) plants in 5 gallon pots on display and was amazed that they tasted good. But of course most of the fruits from small trees are not always good.