Another Orange question

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gronc
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Another Orange question

Postby gronc » Mon Nov 19, 2007 5:46 pm

Does anyone know why some of my Oranges are splitting apart while still on the tree as if the peel is not big enough to hold the contents and some oranges are dropping off for no apparent reason. No bugs have been spotted.

geegee
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Postby geegee » Mon Nov 19, 2007 6:12 pm

Sporadic watering is normally the cause with tomatoes, causing the fruit to suddenly swell internally when you forget to water and then try and make up for it by overdoing it, by which time the skin has toughened up and can't absorb the water as quicky as the centre of the fruit. Never heard of it with citrus but its certainly possible, all trees benefit from a regular deep watering once a week during the growth period then reducing it gradually. You can water less frequently but the trick is consistency. Overwatering is a killer as well, only you will know what is right for your particular growing conditions and age of the trees - older, more established trees need less.

Pomegranates also split easily when close to ripening so are picked before they get a chance to split and ripened off the bough.

geegee
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Postby geegee » Mon Nov 19, 2007 6:21 pm

Oh and the dropping off - I assume these are underripe fruit dropping otherwise you would just pick and eat them! A cold snap with frost or stong winds are the obvious culprits but if not present, again, drought conditions and/or sporadic watering may be the problem as lack of water stresses the tree and it will shed fruit to preserve moisture and stay alive.

It could also be that your tree needs a good prune to remove centre and crossing branches to let light and air in and generally reduce the number of fruit growing - a certain amount of fruit drop is normal, allowing the remaining ones to grow healthier and larger, but you can help this process with pruning and early thinning of the fruit if there is just too much.

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keddyboy
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Postby keddyboy » Mon Nov 19, 2007 7:10 pm

Pruning is very important with citrus fruit trees as already outlined. A bit late now but when fruiting finished prune thre centres hard to allow the light into the centre of the tree. Cut off all the small sucker growths along each main branch and when and where necessary, scrape off lightly, any lichen etc on the main bows.
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gronc
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Postby gronc » Tue Nov 20, 2007 12:34 pm

I think you have hit the nail with the sporadic watering, that is exactly what has happened as well as quite a few weeks without watering when on holidays. Next year I will make sure the watering is done evenly every week. Thankyou all for the advice

El Cid
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Postby El Cid » Tue Nov 20, 2007 1:02 pm

There is an excellent site about home growing of Citrus here:-

http://tinyurl.com/8gnyn

They also have a table of problems and solutions here:-

http://tinyurl.com/uxcca

Sid


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