I was at my father inlaws house yesterday and he showed me something I had never see or heard of before, so I wanted to ask around and see how common this was. He planted 2 key lime trees in his back yard about 2 years ago. They have always beared great little key limes.. but, This summer he noticed that one of the key lime trees was producing what looked like larger limes that normal... so he watched them to se what came of it. Well to his surprise they turned orange. He picked one to see what it was and sure eneough.. its an orange. It has a slightly lime-ish smell and taste, but its an orange. Has any one hear of this happening? Its really blown us and every one we have told away. Ill attach pictures.
If there are orange trees in your area, it may have produced a pollen-hybrid. That is, your lime tree got pollinated by an orange tree, and produced fruit that was in between. It happens all the time between my blood oranges and my limes.
Ahhh. See, thats what we were thinking.. but there are no orange trees in that area. (that we know of) none on that block for sure. Could a bee have spread the pollen? Thank you!
I wonder if it might be growth from the rootstock. The shape and size of the leaf petioles don't look right for key lime. I'm not an expert but I do not believe cross-pollination would result in the production of a different variety of fruit on the tree. The seed contained within the fruit may be hybrid because of the cross-pollination but the fruit itself should remain the same.
lorax, Could your observations be explained by the growth of sports (from mutation) which produce fruit that is similar but different from normal? Furthermore, perhaps these sports are unstable and revert back to normal after a time.
It's entirely possible - I inherited my orchard fully-planted with blooming-age trees/shrubs. As far as I can tell, many of them are on their own roots, and those that aren't are on Seville Orange rootstock. (I found this out by asking around to the people in the area that sell citrus starts. Some of them could be on Swingle roots, but it's an uncommon practice here and they would have to have come from half the country away.) Many of my trees are very thorny, which I understand indicates seed-grown plants; this might be another reason for my odd fruits - they could be from hybrid seeds. Who knows? Pollination is nothing if not completely random here. I don't keep bees, but three haciendas down does, and pretty much anybody with a patch of dirt in and around the village grows citrus of some sort, if only to appease the burros. I shall have to see whether over time the limes stop affecting the blood oranges; if fruit production remains consistent as to flavour and colour, I'll assume hybrid seedstock.
