Northernfox
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Location: Fort Saskatchewan Alberta

Dwarf Orange Tree - help

So I took home a Dwarf Valacia Orange Tree last week. I gave her some water sun and fertilizer. I chose to give her the fertilizer as it is likely she spent a long time getting from California to Alberta. Well wow did she ever grow! 22cm in height in a week. Now to the question. I have two flowers coming one has bloomed and the other is a little further behind. how long do orange flowers usually last and Can I fertilize a flower with its own pollin and get fruit growth?

Thanks

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Did you find out how long the flowers lasted?

imafan26
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Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

O.k. I have a few citrus trees. If they are "seedless" varieties with 4 or less seeds, then they will be parthenocarpic and don't require pollination. The seedy kind are mostly self pollinating, but some do require cross pollination. The bees really love the flowers and nectar. Citrus nectar and pollen makes some very yummy honey.

Valencia is a seedy variety and oranges can be self fertile or parthenocarpic. Cross pollination does set fruit better but also results in more seediness. Your flowers may have a hard time. Citrus experiences a lot of flower drop and that is normal. About 80% of the flowers drop off naturally. I have a few trees and when they bloom they have clusters of flowers. I never really noticed how long each flower lasted but I do know that it lasts more than a day and some lasted 3-5 days.

Bees do pollinate the flowers, but even the self fertile ones set fruit better if they are in a windy spot, so I think the pollen probably does need some shaking.

I think your plant is still young. It is probably the first set. It will probably not fruit, but you might get lucky. Citrus trees take years before they set fruit from seed and even grafted trees will not hold on to fruit if the canopy is small. People always come in to the MG office and complain about their once productive tree not bearing any fruit for a couple of years and want to know what fertilizer it needs.
Most of the time a once productive tree stops producing because of trestiza virus and nothing can be done about that or the homeowner decided to cut off half the tree because the neighbor complained that it was overhanging their yard. Citrus trees resent harsh pruning. If you take off half the cannopy, it won't fruit until the canopy grows back. I think your tree needs to concentrate on growing so, in the end, I think what will happen is that the flower will abort since most citrus trees can't do both at the same time and if the canopy is not big enough to support the fruit, it won't stay on.

Even my repeat flowering trees take turns. There may be fruit on a tree when it is making new leaves, but usually while it is making leaves there won't be any flowers. the flowers pretty much will set on the ends of the new branches and only when the tree goes into a dormant phase. It is one of the reasons citrus can be hard to propagate, it propagates best when you can catch it in a growth phase. Some trees like my satsuma mandarin only fruits once a year and only flushes in the Spring, but others have short cycles of growth and bloom througout the warmer months of the year.
This publication is from Hawaii but it does tell you how to fertilize young and older trees since they are treated differently.
https://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/F_N-14.pdf

I try to keep my citrus trees in pots. Most are in large pots. The oldest is around 20 years old. It will naturally dwarf in a pot. My kaffir lime is about 5 ft tall. In the ground it would have been 30 ft. It is in a 20 inch pot and I plant in pure cinders. I have never had to repot the citrus in years. I do have to tip the pot once in a while because it will try to escape and go to ground. I give the trees vigoro citrus and avocado food 6-4-6 with micros. It also contains sulfur so it is an acidic fertilizer. Since I am bad about fertilizing since I stopped using miracle grow on everything, I try to remember to fertilize my potted plants with osmocote or nutricote once a year to make up for that. With established trees, they get fertilized when I see new growth, again when they flower, and once in the fall to carry them over winter. Some trees are repeat bloomers so they get more fertilizer then the ones that bloom once a year. The amount of fertilizer is determined by the diameter of the trunk. I prune all the water sprouts and I thin the top but I usually will not prune the sides unless it is in the way. Most of the fruits will be on the sides. Put ant bait out at the base of the tree so they don't harbor any aphids. You can use tangle foot, but killing the queen is better than trying to stop an army of workers.



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