38bonsais_and counting
Newly Registered
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Mar 10, 2008 6:58 pm
Location: Englewood, OH

Do orange trees need a male/female to produce fruit?

I have an orange tree. It is 5 years old. First, is it old enough to produce fruit? Second, does it need another tree? Third, how do I tell if it's a male/female?

alexinoklahoma
Senior Member
Posts: 273
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2007 8:21 am
Location: Central Oklahoma

Most citrus I know of are 'self-pollinating', but it often helps when a few other trees are close to get a denser/heavier fruit-set. I am no expert, though. I *know* Meyer lemons can go solo without any probs :-)

Age of fruiting will vary according to species and health/vigor of tree itself. I'd think that 5yrs is about when most of them start showing some flowerings and maybe light fruit-set...and older trees get heavier sets, of course. When young, a tree is benefited by limiting number of fruits allowed. A fuit consumes LOTS of the 'energy' a tree wwould have otherwise used for normal growth. Growth slows significantly when fruit is allowed to mature (make sense?)

To tell the sex of a tree, you must see a flower's innards. Some trees have both male and female 'parts' upon its limbs while others only carry one or the other. Look for the words dioecious and monoecious (spellings??) since those are the descriptive terms of self-pollinating or needing a tree of each 'sex'. And oftentimes, a tree will require a different type of 'fruit' in order to pollinate...cherries often need a different type of cherry 'species' to pollinate themselves; same with apples (diploid -v- triploids, etc...)

Confused? At least oranges are self-pollinating (fairly certain anyways!)

A good read for you....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_sexuality

HTH,
Alex



Return to “BONSAI FORUM”